


The Varied Stages of Something Unlikely

by GlassParade



Series: The Varied Stages of Something Unlikely [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 20:26:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 75,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassParade/pseuds/GlassParade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baker by day, actor whenever he can find the free time for it, Adam Crawford has a cheery, peaceful life and a weakness for damaged people. Sebastian Smythe is an unhappy office drone and habitual playboy who is about to discover he has a previously undiscovered weakness for English men who carry baked goods in their coat pockets. It's the most completely unlikely pairing in the world - but the good thing about something being unlikely is that while it may not be easy, it's certainly never boring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meet Cute

**Author's Note:**

> This is really a short story series told in ficlets of 2000 to 6000 words - hence the short chapters and lack of anything even remotely resembling good writing. :) My apologies. All of these stories have previously been posted to my Tumblr, username glitterdammerung.

So they meet at a bar...

Adam goes to the bar not thinking he's going to pick up. He just wants a beer, and he has actually found a place that serves Beamish - in cans but you take what you can get - so it's a Thursday night when he wraps up work at the bakery and trundles down to The Trap.

"Hi," he calls to Sabrina behind the bar, unwrapping his scarf as he pushes through the crowd watching the boxing match. She tips up her chin in a smiley nod and gives him the high sign back, turning immediately to start pouring his stout. By the time he gets to the polished mahogany bar she's got a perfect pour in the bulbous glass she pushes over to him. "Thanks, love."

"Any time. Payment?" She wiggles her dark eyebrows and beams a hopeful little smile back at him, shoulders twitching with her anticipation. And of course he has the payment, he always does. With a wink, Adam pulls the ten dollar bill out of his left jacket pocket and the carefully bagged almond and raspberry-lemon croissant that is Sabrina's very favorite bakery good out of the right, passing them across the bar like he's James Bond, if a very cheeky and cheery sort of 007.

Sabrina squeals, flops across the bar to plant a big smacky kiss on Adam's cheek, and bounces off with her treat in hand. Adam shakes his head and chuckles after her, as he does every week when this happens. Sabrina's a lovely girl, too nice to be tending bar in a grotty little New York pub, but he's quite glad she does work at The Trap. He'll bring her a pastry every week entirely happily until she finally wises up and gets the hell out of here.

"Well, you're a hit with the ladies," comes the surly drawl from his left, startling Adam just as he's taking a sip of his beer. "Was that a croissant in your pocket, or were you actually happy to see her?"

"Both," Adam replies, shifting around to lean on his elbow and survey the lanky pile of red-eyed misery hunched over on the next stool, a row of empty shot glasses upside down in front of him and the distinct aroma of tequila slammers emanating for a good four foot radius. "I think I've got a black and white in my inside breast pocket if you're interested."

The guy blinks befuddled, half-lidded greeny-hazel eyes for a moment and seems to be shaking his head to clear it. "I can't tell if you're a good samaritan or if you're coming on to me."

Adam can't help the laugh that erupts. "I work at a bakery. I was saving the cookie for later but it's not as if I can't make more - and you do look like you could use a cookie." He pulls the little wax paper wrapped bundle out of his pocket and pushes it across the bar. "So I guess I'm just a good samaritan. Unless you wanted me to come on to you, I can be accomodating."

A frown creases Lanky Pile of Drunken Misery's smooth brow. "I would have thought you were hitting on the girl."

"No. She's my friend. Not my type." Adam scoots himself up onto the bar stool next to the tipsy fellow and pulls his Beamish over. Extending his index finger, he nudges the cookie closer to the other man. "Come on, eat up."

Slowly, Mister Misery picks up the cookie and unwraps it carefully, handling it like a relic. He takes a nibbly bite out of it, then a bigger one, and in the next bite takes a full quarter of the cookie into his mouth, a huge smile of bliss spreading across his face as he chews. "Oh, my God."

"Glad you like it." Adam smiles, always happy to see his baking make someone else happy.

"I may have to hit on  _you_ ,"the guy mumbles, chewing and swallowing his bite of cookie. He looks like he's about two seconds from orgasm. "God, that's amazing." Setting the cookie down with clear reluctance, he brushes his hands off on his jeans and extends the right one to Adam. "I'm Sebastian."

"Adam." He accepts the handshake and takes a closer look at this mopey, cookie loving drunk and thinks he might like what he sees. He'll get the guy a glass of water and see what's lurking beneath the tequila and the misery. "Come here often?"


	2. Getting To Know You, Getting To Know All About You

"So you work in a bakery, and you're from Essex, which is near London but is not actually London." A frown is furrowing Sebastian's brow as he counts off points on his fingers. "Right?"

The alcohol sodden pile of misery has sobered up some thanks to an undiluted cup of Costa Rican and two bottles of water that Sabrina helpfully supplied - Adam now owes her a full dozen of his special black forest gateau cupcakes, not that he minds in the slightest - but he seems to still be in the phase of drunkenness that centers around deep concentration and the repetition of what one has just heard in order to be sure one  _understands_  what one has just heard. It's cute, Adam thinks, in way that is bordering on tragically comic.

"And you're from all over, having lived everywhere from France to Ohio, and you work in advertising." Adam nods over to the row of inverted shot glasses. "Hence the alcohol abuse and the general air of discontent, one assumes, if 'Mad Men' was to be believed." 

It's a calculated shot. They've been talking for an hour. Adam has learned quite a lot about his handsome new friend's life in general, but said handsome new friend has been deeply unforthcoming about the circumstances that brought his unlikely self to The Trap, and Adam has determined that he is going to sort this mystery out before he decides whether or not he is going to drag the man into his bed.

Oh, all right. He's going to do  _that_  regardless. Just...not immediately. Not until his curiosity is satisfied.

Unfortunately, his opening shot has missed. Sebastian's lean, angular face goes all closed off, his greenish eyes going darker and losing any hint of hazel. "Not really." He doesn't elaborate, doesn't volunteer further information, and oh, but that does nothing but pique Adam's need to know into overdrive.

He's English, so of course there's a tiny little part of him that fancies himself to have been Sherlock Holmes in a past life. Never mind the fictional status of the world's greatest consulting detective. Taking a sip of his beer, Adam considers the evidence at hand. Mysterious, morose young gay male in a dive bar, not paying attention to the sporting match and drinking some very serious alcohol by himself...it doesn't really take a genius, does it?

"You're a little young to be getting sincerely, seriously drunk, aren't you?" Adam eventually asks, a bit worried. This is what he knows from their hour-long conversation: that Sebastian is 25, fairly fresh out of some school called Wharton with a marketing degree under his belt, and he has an entry level job at one of the top advertising agencies in New York City. "That is to say, your purpose in coming here was absolutely to get drunk, and not necessarily to enjoy it. Have I got it right?"

Sebastian doesn't answer, and he isn't looking at Adam, which just leaves Adam to carry on with what may now be the right track. He clears his throat. "Quite apart from your peculiarly excessive drinking," he goes on, keeping a weather eye on his taciturn young companion, "you don't really seem the pub type." This is very, very true, the truest of all true things. Sebastian's jeans have a designer label, his casual button down is a little too well cut, his carefully scuffed loafers a little too deliberate.

In short, Sebastian is as preppy as they come, really, even taking into account his business degree and advertising career, and while Adam could buy him as the type to drink to excess quite easily, he can't quite reconcile the location in which Sebastian had chosen to do so. Gay bar, wine bar, nice clean hotel bar, absolutely and yes. Dark little hole in the wall divey sort of place? Not so much.

Adam waits, and Adam fiddles with his second glass of Beamish, and eventually Adam's patience wins out. "I was having dinner a few blocks away, and it didn't go well, and when I finally stopped walking I was here," Sebastian finally admits, rolling his eyes. "Simple as that."

_And I'm the Duke of Cornwall._ Reaching out, Adam claps Sebastian on the shoulder, sympathy in his very soul. He knows what all too well what it's like to get dumped. "Tell you this much, whoever the guy is, he's clearly an idiot for letting you get away." 

But this statement, far from pulling a chuckle and blush out of Sebastian, makes him recoil and snort. Adam can only blink in surprise and take a second guess. "All right, he's... _not_  an idiot?"

Another snort, an eyeroll, and Sebastian downs half of his third bottle of water. "No, he is, it's just...it's complicated," he grumbles, mouth twisting a little bitterly. It's a little heartbreaking to see, despite the distinctly thorny facade that Sebastian has up. He thinks, obviously, that he is being very strong and that he is a fortress, impenetrable and immovable.

He is wrong, very wrong, of course. Adam can see right through him. And while he is still on the one hand quite interested in unraveling Sebastian in bed - oh, he has  _such_  a weakness for the high-strung, for poking and prodding and cheerily teasing them into relaxation - he is also rather concerned with banishing the stormclouds from Sebastian's handsome face.

It takes only a moment to come to a decision.

 "Right. That's it." Tossing another ten on the bar by way of a tip for Sabrina, Adam slips off of his bar stool and takes Sebastian's arm, enjoying the look of surprise this elicits. "You're coming back to mine. It's not far."

Sebastian wobbles to his feet, warily surprised. "I am?"

"You are," Adam confirms.

It doesn't seem to alleviate Sebastian's bafflement at what must seem one hell of a  _non sequitur._ He rallies, though, and it's just so cute how he's trying to make sense of things. "Okay. You're really good looking and God knows I'm seriously into your accent, but are we actually doing this...?"

"Going to my place? Yes," Adam assures him, picking up their jackets and carefully guiding his new friend back through the crowd of men by the television. "We have to."

"Have to?"

"Mmhm." Out on the street, he drops Sebastian's arm long enough to wind his scarf around his neck and beams. "That's where the tea is."


	3. Tea and Sympathy

Sebastian peeks around the tiny apartment whenever English Guy -  _Adam, he has a name,_  he reminds himself - turns around to mess with the plastic kettle thing and urge it to heat up, already.

Brown brick walls on two sides, deep blue plaster on the others. The plaster walls are hung with framed black and white prints of various world landmarks; Kilimanjaro, a temple in something that might be Nepal, the Sagrada Familia cathedral. There are lamps everywhere, low wattage and casting warm golden light throughout the single room, no television anywhere but a big laptop on the table over by the floor-level futon that looks like it doesn't get made often, comfortably rumpled and mounded with pillows.

Sebastian had really sort of thought they'd tumble right into that bed as soon as they got through the door, but to his surprise, Adam seems to have been actually serious about the tea thing. The tea thing really is a thing. Who knew?

A heavy ceramic mug clunks down onto the postage-stamp sized table in front of him, and when Sebastian startles and looks up, Adam is casting him a sunny grin while he starts to pour hot water over the teabags, steam pluming up between the two of them in a cloud. Sebastian finds the smile infectious, the hospitality heartwarming, and the fact that the guy works in a fucking  _bakery_  and carries  _cookies_  in his pockets absolutely goddamn adorable.

He doesn't usually do adorable. Adorable leads to attachment and Sebastian Smythe definitely absolutely no way  _ever_  does attachment. Boy, has he learned that lesson the hard way.

But he is not thinking of Greg right now.

"Who are you thinking about right now?" Adam sets a tiny pitcher and a sugar bowl in the center of the table and flops down into the other wicker-bottomed chair with his own mug of steeping tea. 

Okay, maybe Sebastian  _is_  thinking of Greg right now.

He really would rather not. "Do you do this often?" Diverting the conversation seems like a much safer path to travel. "Bring strange men you meet in bars back to your apartment for...tea?"

"I bring plenty of folks back here for tea." Adam's lopsided grin really is very appealing, and very cheeky, and Sebastian likes the way he's just sort of...draped...all over his chair, legs sprawled out in their jeans, arm dangling over the chair-back. "I'm not sure if you noticed, but I'm English, it's a bit of a thing with us, tea."

 _Oh, I noticed. I would listen to you read a phone book_. "Just tea?"

Adam's chuckle is warm and deep, rich as buttery toffee. "Forward. I like it." Arching an eyebrow, he gestures to the mugs in front of them. "But we haven't finished our tea."

"We don't have to."  _I want a distraction, and you will more than do_.

"But I want to." Still smiling, Adam reaches and tugs the teabags out of Sebastian's mug, setting them on a little plastic dish next to the sugar bowl. His own mug gets the same treatment before a spoon is slipped across the table to sit by Sebastian's hand. "Milk in the pitcher, sugar in the bowl. Help yourself to as much as you like."

Sebastian only sits and watches him doctor his own tea, a thin stream of milk, a generous spoonful of sugar. The spoon clinks against the thick porcelain as Adam stirs, swirling the milk in a pale spiral before it disappears into the tea entirely and turns the deep amber liquid into a warm pale caramel shade. He lifts the mug to his lips and takes two deep swallows, blue eyes twinkling and fixed on Sebastian, who isn't trying too awfully hard to stop thinking about how if he made a move  _right now_ , Adam's kiss would taste like warm tea with milk.

He's never wanted to taste tea with milk so much before, not ever. 

"For what it's worth," Adam says, startling Sebastian out of his thoughts again, "I do actually intend on going to bed with you."

It's a good thing Sebastian hadn't started in on his own drink. "Sorry?"

"Oh, I think you heard me." The mug clunks back down to the table. "Drink up."

"If we're going to -" He's mostly sober, but only  _mostly_. The events of the evening, the lingering alcohol in his system, his utter confusion, they're all combining to make it very difficult for Sebastian to understand what's going on. Sex is usually a distinctly more efficient and direct transaction for him.

"We are." Adam reaches across and grabs Sebastian's untouched tea, putting milk and sugar into it just like he'd done with his own before pushing it back across the table. "I didn't necessarily mean immediately, maybe not even tonight, but, oh, definitely. It's going to happen."

Sebastian revises his opinion, since he now can't at  _all_ say that Adam isn't being direct, there's that at least. Yet despite this small injection of familiarity, the situation is still no less puzzling. "This is both comforting and confusing."

There's that toffee laughter again. "I like you. A lot. But I've got this idea you went to that bar to self-medicate after that bad dinner you had. I interrupted you at that and...well. I admit to some minor selfish motive in doing it."

Sebastian,intrigued, considers possible questions and discards them in favor of silence, for waiting for further explanation. He tastes his tea.

Perfect.

 _This is what Adam's mouth will taste like_. He can't stop thinking that.

"I interrupted you because I thought you were good looking and out of place and I do love a good mystery." Adam keeps drinking the tea that Sebastian now knows is delicious and soothing and, hey, maybe the English are on to something with the tea thing. "But I won't become just another form of self-medicating, Sebastian."

"I don't date," Sebastian blurts without thinking.

"That's fine. I simply prefer that my one night stands be a bit more civilized than your average sweaty naked romp." There is, however, nothing civilized about the wicked gleam in Adam's eyes. "Tea, and a sober companion who isn't just using me to forget about the guy before me. I want to enjoy our time together. I want you to enjoy it, too." _  
_

At that last bit, Adam's voice drops low and husky, his eyes darkening to a deeper velvety blue. In that instant, he is not a charming English baker who keeps sweets in his pockets and plies men with hot tea. He is sex and generosity and playful desire and really, well, Sebastian has had just about enough of the tea in his mug.

_I will enjoy it, I will, oh God I promise I will I just -_

Some of the sugar Adam put in his tea must not have dissolved completely, because when he surprises Sebastian with a kiss, the grit of sugar crystals on his lips makes it literally the sweetest kiss Sebastian has ever experienced. Soft, warm, promising, exactly the antithesis of how his evening had been when he walked into The Trap and ordered six tequila slammers from the girl behind the bar.

Flicking the tip of his tongue out, Sebastian gathers up the last of the melting crystals, licking them off of the soft pillow of Adam's bottom lip and swallowing, the sweetness gliding over his tongue and down his throat as he teases Adam's mouth open and goes in to taste.

Ah, yes. There's the tea, just exactly as delicious as he'd thought it might be.

"I still want to know what brought you to my neck of the woods," Adam mumbles between kisses, pulling back enough that Sebastian can see the mischief in his eyes. "I'm not letting that go."

"Tell you in the morning?" If he can still remember by then. Adam's civilized seduction seems to sure have a way of scrambling the neurons. Not that Sebastian minds.

One last gorgeous toffee chuckle. "Let me make you pancakes."

It's a deal.


	4. The Sum of Your Parts

A back that arches, up, curving up off the mattress while shoulders press down into the pillow.

Hands that cup, curl, curve to fit the shape of the skull, fingers that thread through a honey-gold tousle of curls to clutch and tug.

A mouth that opens to let out a gasp, a groan, a shuddering, whispery sigh.

Legs that stir restlessly, calves that tighten and relax, feet that flex and toes that curl into the sheets - Sebastian is everything and nothing more than the sum of his parts, every shaking, quaking, strung-tight and desperate reaching inch of himself under Adam's hands and mouth.

The soft, slow, sweet kiss that started this all had given way swiftly to something with an altogether darker flavor, still sweet, but more like the rich sweetness of thick, real maple syrup now, heavy and deep, one kiss flowing lazily into the next until Sebastian had found himself laid out on the futon, shirtless, arms stretched over his head and pinned at the wrists by Adam's strong hands. Adam, by then somehow just as shirtless - how  _had_  that happened without Sebastian noticing? - mouth tipped into a half smile, eyes that deep and deepening blue velvet, all puckish and completely irresistible.

If Adam had asked anything in that moment, no matter how outrageous or dangerous, Sebastian thinks he might have agreed without thought or reservation.

The hands that had pinned his wrists to the pillows earlier are now pressed firm against Sebastian's pelvis, the heels of each one and their long thumbs following the curve of the hipbones, palms wrapped warm around the lean line of the hip, fingers dipping and denting the skin in an authoritative grasp. 

The mouth from which Sebastian had kissed and sucked crystals of sugar and traces of tea is tasting his skin, the flat of the tongue pressed to the tight strain of Sebastian's erection, licking slowly up in the smallest of increments, puffs of breath cooling the dampness and making him shiver, his sack tightening with the sublime ache of being teased.

He's used to sex being something perfunctory and desperate, the pleasant means to the end result of release, quick and efficient - he's never experienced anything akin to the near...not worship, not reverence, but it's not far off, maybe? 

He's being  _appreciated_. 

And he's not sure he deserves it, exactly, has no idea how he will repay the sheer kindness being shown to him by this person he'd never laid eyes on before two and a half hours ago with his listening ear and cookies and tea and sympathy and curiosity and long, slow, languorous exploration of Sebastian's body.

His fingers flex and pull at Adam's hair, and he ignores what might be, if he were the kind of person who let go enough, the sting of grateful tears in the back of his eyes, closing his eyelids so tight when he comes that sparkles of false light go off in the blackness.


	5. Drawn To You

" _Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling..._ " Adam transfers a fluffy, golden brown pancake from the hot pan over to an already crowded plate and sings quietly along with Diana Krall, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure he's not waking Sebastian up. " _And still be on my feet..._ "

Sprawled out over the futon, Sebastian looks even younger than his 25 years, all slightly open mouth and tossed-about limbs. He's laying on his stomach, arm stretched over the pillow he'd drowsily grabbed when Adam had eased himself out of the bed to begin making breakfast. 

In the drizzle of sunlight through the linen blinds, the smooth skin of Sebastian's back lifts and lowers with his even breaths. Adam knows that back quite well now, likes that back, can't see the constellations of freckles that dapple it from here but likes that he knows they're there.

He likes the loose swag of his maroon jersey bedsheets around Sebastian's hips and behind as well, but not as much as he'd like to  _remove_  those sheets right now.

Hm. No. That would be rude. He should at least feed the man breakfast first.

Turning back to the stovetop, Adam pours the last of the pancake batter into the pan to make two smallish cakes - they'll go on top of the stack anyway - and lets them begin to heat and bubble as he flips the kettle on to boil. 

 _Maybe this time we'll actually finish the tea_. He feels the star shaped pucker-flare of mirth in the back of his mouth as a smile quirks up his lips. He wouldn't mind if they didn't,  _honestly_. Last night had been better than he'd anticipated, and he'd anticipated that it would be really very good indeed when he made the decision to kiss Sebastian after all.

There'd been that moment where he thought about sending the fellow off after a second cup of tea, that moment of doubt when  _I don't date_  had fluttered across the table and smacked Adam in the chest. It had been a salty moment of insult then, sour in his mouth and a clotted knot in his stomach.  _I doubt you're boyfriend material_  had only barely just been restrained from zipping right back over into Sebastian's face, held back when Adam registered the thin line of pained desperation running through the words and remembered the bad dinner date that had brought Sebastian into his evening in the first place.

In that instant he had wanted a) to fuck Sebastian until he forgot his hurt, at least for a bit and b) to accept the challenge inherent in  _I don't date._

Adam hasn't had a boyfriend in a while and honestly hasn't been looking for one - he's carved out a substantial contentment in his solitary life with the occasional hookup. And if he  _had_  been looking for a boyfriend, Sebastian, on paper, would have been the most avoidable choice in the world: uptight, slightly snobby advertising executive in training, from an excessively good and proper background but with a rebellious streak a mile wide and an apparent actual aversion to anything more substantial than a fuck and run? They have nothing in common so far as Adam's been able to suss out.

And yet.

Yet.

With a sigh, Adam flips the last two pancakes onto the plate, slips a pat of butter between and on top of them, and tends to the tea, pouring the boiling water over the bags of Chai Spice and inhaling the aromas of cardamom and cinnamon, a dollop of warm decadent pleasure spreading through his stomach.

The table is already set and ready in the morning light. It's time for breakfast.

And for answers.

"Come along, sleepyhead," Adam says cheerfully, moving to nudge at Sebastian's hip with a bare foot. "I won't kick you out of bed for eating crackers in it, but pancakes are absolutely out of the question. Much too sticky."


	6. The B Side

“ _Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling…_ ” The singing is low, quiet, but in an apartment as small as Adam's, when it's the only sound apart from the muted scrape of plastic on Teflon, it's still enough to rouse Sebastian out of sleep. He stays still, though, eyes closed and keeps his breathing even, not wanting to halt the music, not wanting to get out of the warm bed with its soft-soft-soft sheets and feeling of contentment. “ _And still be on my feet_ _..._ ”

It’s a nice, mellow voice that trails off into a nice, mellow hum.

The sentiment, worryingly enough, isn’t bad either.

Sebastian shies away from that thought and takes stock of himself. He has a slight headache, but nothing like it would have been had he been left to his own devices. He is naked save for a strategically draped dark red jersey bedsheet around his ass. His body is still pleasantly sore from the night’s events, from being pulled and stretched and pinched and nipped at and held down.

And he’s going to remember everything long after the aches fade, he’s pretty sure, which is interesting because Sebastian has not had any sex worth committing to memory for quite some time now.

Interesting, and probably as dangerous as Adam’s very adorable face and accent and tea and cookies.

Wait.

Are those pancakes he smells? Adam was  _serious_  about that?

Holy  _shit_.

They have now known each other for...Sebastian cracks his eye open the smallest of slits and finds the bright red digits of the alarm clock wedged in by the laptop on the side table. Ah. There. Twelve hours, give or take. Two of those hours were spent talking,  _three_  spent getting leisurely fucked within an inch of his life without having to really lift a finger, and the last seven spent sleeping ( _sleeping over!_  with a one night stand! good fucking Christ!) with his arm draped over Adam’s stomach (he can’t even  _begin_  to form words for  _that._ ).

It’s the best twelve hours he’s spent in memory both recent and distant, and now he’s getting  _pancakes_  and he actually kind of never wants to leave and, oh, yeah, danger, Will Robinson. Holy, holy, holy, the very holiest of shits.

Adam’s still humming as he works, scraping at the pan, switching his kettle thing back on - ahahah  _great_ , Sebastian just got a Pavlovian erection at the thought of tea, what has this guy  _done_  to him? - and Sebastian chances a glance through slitted eyes, admires the sun-blurred image of Adam in nothing more than his soft, loose jeans riding pale blue and low on his hips so that Sebastian can just see the lean muscle of his lower back, the dips and valleys Sebastian had traced his fingers over when he’d grabbed blindly for Adam’s ass to pull him closer, deeper, further inside...

Sebastian presses his mouth tight, tight, tight to keep a groan from slipping out, squeezes his eyes shut again, and wonders where his evening had gone so very wrong/right/frightening/amazing.

(it’s definitely  _one_  of those four. maybe two.)

(oh, like he’s supposed to figure  _anything_  out with a hot half-naked Englishman making him breakfast.)

(but is he supposed to be worried that he seems to be having some sort of argument with himself?)

(yes.)

(but,  _pancakes_.)

Water is streaming into heavy porcelain mugs and then there’s the clunk of the kettle back down on the counter and the shuffle of bare feet across sun-warmed floorboards.

“Come along, sleepyhead,” he hears just a second or two before Adam’s foot is playfully nudging him in the ribs. “I won’t kick you out of bed for eating crackers in it, but pancakes are absolutely out of the question. Much too sticky.”

Hot, half-naked breakfast cooking and  _funny_  Englishman, Sebastian revises, and this time he does not hold back the groan as he rolls over because, oh, wow, is he ever in  _so much trouble_.


	7. Already Too Late

"You talk in your sleep, did you know that?" Adam cuts through his stack of pancakes and has to hide his grin at Sebastian's dumbfounded look. "Well. It's more of a grumble. Pass the maple syrup, will you?"

He's not a monster. He'd let Sebastian get through half of his plate and even waited for him to swallow his last bite before casually dropping the question bomb. Incredibly polite of him, really. Adam has been dying to ask about this for  _hours_. He's shown some incredible restraint.

Although maybe he should have encouraged the poor fellow to at least put underwear on before the interrogation began. It’s just he’s so  _appealing_  when he's all all rumpled hair and wrapped up in just the sheet from Adam's bed. He looks like some twink-y street urchin, not a young upwardly mobile professional at all. Adam loves the dichotomy, these two different people in one lanky, tight-wound body.

Sebastian is staring at him with no small amount of amused incredulity, head tilted and eyebrows up as he pushes the bottle of syrup over the scuffed tabletop. " _Do_  I."

He's going the nonchalant route. It's so fun Adam just about can't stand it. "Surely you know you do. I mean Greg must have brought it up at some point."

That was a calculated bomb to drop, but the agreement  _had_  been, after all, that they'd discuss what had brought Sebastian to The Trap. And now Sebastian freezes, hand still outstretched, face very, very still. There is abruptly no trace of amusement and his quick tension is the very opposite of nonchalant. "Greg."

"You basically growled his name in your sleep."

All right, this isn’t all fun and games, of course it isn’t. Adam has this pathological urge to take care of people, always has. From the misfits he’d gathered into his little show choir at NYADA to the wounded bird that was Kurt Hummel eight years ago to Sabrina at the bar who worked three jobs and was still too broke to indulge in little luxuries like gourmet cupcakes - he can’t help but try his hardest to mend hurts and bring unhappy people some small spot of sunshine.

Hearing the snarled name of some other man just hours after he’d slept with Sebastian, while he had Sebastian draped sleepily over his torso, yes, it had stung and burned, there was no getting around that. He was human. But it had also sent a sharp needle of sympathetic pain right through his heart and made him want to make Sebastian feel better, just like the palpable misery that had surrounded Sebastian at the bar had prompted Adam to bring him home in the first place.

He wonders if Sebastian even felt the kiss Adam had gently pressed to his forehead as he slept, if he knew that Adam had been awake for ages lying there and brushing Sebastian’s hair away from his face, worrying as he waited to fall into sleep himself.

Likely not. And that’s all right. Adam’s pretty sure it might have made him bolt and run, clothing or not.

He kind of wants to bolt and run himself, if he’s being honest. This is all a little intense for one night. Still, he can’t help himself. He was in deep the minute he saw Sebastian at the bar, damn it all. It wasn’t entirely about making a lonely soul ache a little less for one night.

Across the table, Sebastian takes another carefully chewed and swallowed bite of his breakfast, seeming a touch less enthusiastic about the pancakes and quite obviously mulling over a response. At last he takes a long sip of tea and shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

Nothing to do but shake it off and keep going. "Don't be. It was clearly a bad dream and I'd rather you have one of those about the idiot you started your night with than about me.” It’s not as difficult as he would have thought to force a bright smile on, to be jokey and a little silly. “I mean, I assume that  _is_  who The Mysterious Greg happens to be?"

“It is.” Sebastian’s gaze is downcast, face shuttered over like a window in a storm. His fingers toy absently with a loose wrinkle of sheet at his hip. “Was.”

“Boyfriend?”

“ _No_.” The answer is much more vehement than seems necessary, making Adam drop his fork in surprise. Jerking his head up, Sebastian looks repentant, but still closed off. “I’m sorry. That was a little harsh. But...no. Greg was never my boyfriend. Just...a boy who was a friend. So to speak.”

 _Sure_. “I have a few of those.” Adam picks his fork back up and digs right back into his breakfast. “To my knowledge, however, I don’t grumble their names in my sleep immediately after being -”

“I said I was sorry.” Lips and forehead and jaw pinch and settle into a frown on Sebastian’s lean face for a moment before smoothing out in repentance. “And I’m sorry again. God, I’m a dick.”

“A bit.” This time, Adam feels his smile coming more easily, responding with warmth to the contrition and confusion.  _Oh, this one is really so very dangerous_. “I sort of like it about you, though, I have to admit.”

This pulls a chuckle out of Sebastian as he glances away for a moment. When he comes back to Adam, his eyes are a little less clouded, a little more brightly green. “Look, I just...I don’t really want to talk about Greg, right now. I will, because I told you I would and I don’t break promises. Just...” His shoulders lift with his deep breath. “I had a nice time, Adam. Last night. I...want to keep that going for a little longer into today.”

Fair enough. So does Adam, how convenient.

The decision to let it go is an easy one, especially when he can start putting a few pieces of the Sebastian puzzle into place himself from what little he’s gleaned. Not to mention he's fairly certain that he can parlay learning the rest into a second encounter. The thought is both exhilarating and frightening as all hell.

Yes. This one is dangerous. This one manages to be open yet enigmatic, a cocky man as well as a hurt boy, at turns snarky and vulnerable and filthy and terribly, terribly interesting, more than anyone’s been in a significantly long time. Sebastian is a complete threat to the casual ramble of Adam’s life, specifically because Adam doesn't just want to cheer him up, Adam  _wants_  him, in a way that is distinctly not casual.

 _So_  much trouble. Adam gets up to make Sebastian another mugful of tea. “All right.”

“All right?”

“All right.” He flips the kettle back on and spins around, leaning against the counter and beaming the easiest smile of the morning at the bundle of trouble sitting at his kitchen table. “You could...tell me over dinner tonight after we’re both done with work.”

Sebastian’s instant tension is sad, it’s so predictable already. “Not a date.”

“No, not a date, dinner.” Adam widens his eyes, opens his mouth to emit a low  _ooooo_  and wiggles his fingers. “Scary, scary dinner.”

Eyebrow up. “Are you making fun of me?”

Tipping his head, Adam makes a show of pretending to think about it. “Mmm...yes. Absolutely.”

Silence stretches between them like live power lines, crackling and snapping until at last, Sebastian huffs out a laugh and gets to his feet, abandoning the bedsheet as he saunters over to Adam, snagging his fingers in the belt loops of Adam’s jeans. “You know, it’s a damn good thing you’re hot and you make good pancakes.”

Adam’s turn for an eyebrow raise. “You  _do_  have to go to work, don’t you?”

Sebastian tugs, and their hips are slotted together, warm and snug. This is an obvious distraction from the topic - Adam’s not at all surprised that Sebastian’s really very good at that, very practiced - but it’s suddenly quite difficult to care. “My senior colleague flew out to meet with one of our clients today, so I’m going to be working from home waiting for him to call. So.” He looks up from under his lashes. It makes Adam’s heart stutter to a stop. “I’ve got about five, maybe ten minutes. Want to see what I can do with them?”

Adam sucks in a shuddery breath as Sebastian's palm flattens over Adam's abdomen and his fingers slip under the waistband of the jeans, a smirk curving his mouth as Adam flails and gropes behind himself to switch the kettle back off so they can continue this  _sans_  potential distractions.

 _So_  much trouble.


	8. Interlude - Objects In Space

As objects move through space, some slip and rush right past each other, while others get pulled into orbit around larger objects.

And then there’s Sebastian.

Under normal circumstances, he and Adam might have been slip and rushers, two ships passing in the night, a pair of dust motes in the great big universe of New York City, the largest small town in the world. They might have met - they don’t know it yet, but they have friends in common, and so it isn’t outside the realm of possibility - but probably it would have been just a tick on the clock, two pairs of eyes meeting in Times Square, a  _simpatico_  head nod, and then the current of the living streets pulling them apart and neither of them thinking much of it.

In New York, there are hundreds of casual one second encounters every minute. Thousands. Slip, rush. Slip, rush.

But that’s not what happens here. As we know.

Rejection was the slingshot that sent Sebastian hurtling out into space, freefalling in hurt and confusion and anger until he tumbled right into Adam’s orbit. He wasn’t looking to be caught any more than Adam was looking to catch a falling star and yet here they are.

It’s been several weeks. Over one month. Less than four. Who’s counting? It’s the longest one night stand in recorded history, kept determinedly casual with a rigor that would make Casanova envious. They are not dating. They’re not.

(except, of course, they totally are)

(are  _not_ )

They get one day and one night a week, Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons. Sometimes Thursday’s a sleepover, most nights not. If it is, though, pancakes in the morning which may or may not get finished before their traditional pre-work quickie.

Location? Whoever’s apartment is closer when they get finished with dinner.

(dinner doesn’t mean a date, it’s just a civilized prelude to fucking each other’s brains out)

(sure, if that’s what you want to call it)

Saturday afternoons are spent at the bakery, a clutch of hours where Adam shows Sebastian how to make sprites, cinnamon rolls, miniature fruit tarts, cream cheese brownies, and, on one single memorable eyebrow-singeing occasion, creme brulee.

Sebastian is not allowed to handle the butane torch anymore.

Light, laughter, tea, talking, sex, stability -

(watch it, don’t get too close to that thought)

\- counting the days between one meeting and the next, not minding too much when sometimes an extra few hours sneak in there, it’s fine, this is totally casual.

(keep telling yourself that)

It’s best friends with the greatest benefits in the world all around.

(keep. telling. yourself. that.)

He hasn’t seen anyone else besides his work colleagues in all this time.

He doesn’t want to.

It’s totally casual, though, really.

Casual friends leave spare toothbrushes at each other’s apartments, right?

(you’re so entirely fucked)


	9. Collision

It’s a Saturday when things start to get  _weird_.

When Sebastian walks into the door of Sweets every Saturday, he’s used to seeing Adam. Adam, with his tousled hair concealed under a fluffy paper hat thing - he must be the only person in the world who makes that look adorable - in the kitchen of the bakery, waving and smiling cheerfully from his position elbows deep in some kind of dough. He takes a moment or two to get the baking situation under control and then he comes around the counter, playfully jostling elbows with Natasha or Will on the cash register before he greets Sebastian with a kiss and a chocolate croissant.

It’s nice. Something to look forward to at the end of a long week at the agency. And this week has been longer than most, having made his first pitch presentation on which he was the primary...but having it received less than enthusiastically. In fact there was a good chance he’d failed entirely.

This week he could really use that croissant. And the kiss.

Mostly the kiss.

Sadly, there is no croissant on this Saturday and  _absolutely_  no kiss, because Adam is not in the kitchen and neither Natasha nor Will are on the cash register when Sebastian butts his way in through Sweets’ door with coffee and all the hope in the world. Hope which is quickly dashed and replaced with utter confusion - because for some insane reason, it’s Blaine Anderson of  _all_  people standing behind the counter with a box of rugelach in one hand and a supremely panicked look on his face as he surveys the growing crowd of surly baked good aficionados before him.

Sebastian hasn’t seen Blaine in months. So many months. And last time he had, Blaine had been a thoroughly happy second grade teacher in Brooklyn, not any kind of cash register jockey anywhere. Which would probably explain the look of pleading and abject horror on his face, not to mention the  _help me_  he quietly mouths to Sebastian when their eyes meet.

Nothing, however, explains how Blaine got behind the cash register in the first place. Does he know Will? Or Natasha? Or...no way...Adam? Can the world be  _that_  fucking small?

It can't, can it?

There’s no time to think about it, though, not with the crowd muttering getting louder and Blaine’s face getting more amusingly panicked. The good news for Blaine is that all the months of hanging out here with Adam plus four holiday and summer stints working at Abercrombie and Fitch means that Sebastian can easily switch gears and rescue his friend from the inexplicable and entirely hilarious situation in which he seems to have found himself. Within minutes he’s rolled up his sleeves and put a very relieved Blaine strictly on dessert retrieval duty, pulling the cookies and cupcakes and blondies out of the display cases and boxing them up for the hungry crowd while Sebastian rings up the purchases.

In twenty minutes they have the store cleared out and Blaine is slumping down behind the counter with a cup of coffee that he’s clutching like a lifeline. “‘It’s the slow time of day,’ Adam says,” he snaps in a fairly decent and distinctly hilarious approximation of Adam’s accent. “‘No one ever comes in between two and four,’ he says. ‘You won’t have to actually ring anyone up,’ he tells me. Oh, my  _God_.”

 _Adam says._  That begins to answer that question, at least - Blaine’s definitely not here for Will or Natasha. “Yeah, what the hell  _are_  you doing here? Where  _is_  Adam?” Suddenly starving, Sebastian takes a huge, satisfying bite out of the last vegan cranberry scone he’d filched from the day-old basket that Adam keeps in the walk-in cooler for the employees and slides down next to Blaine. “Not that I’m not happy to see you. Jesus, it’s been months.” Since long before Adam - Sebastian remembers a dinner double date with Blaine and Kurt, he’d brought Greg along...

...he stops that thought in its tracks. It's enough to remember he’d seen Kurt and Blaine a few months ago.

“I  _know_. I’ve been meaning to call you, sorry, it’s just...” Blaine runs his fingers through his hair, making his already unruly dark curls stand even more on end. He sticks there, fingers threaded through the mop as he shoots a sudden confused glance at Sebastian. “No. Wait. Back up - I think I should be asking what  _you’re_  doing here. How do  _you_ know Adam?”

“How do  _you_?” Sebastian counters, and fuck, New York City really  _is_  a small town, isn’t it? Especially in the gay community. But even so, what are the odds of this? “I asked first.”

“No,” comes the quick correction, accompanied by a patented Anderson smirk, which is only more annoying on one other Anderson in the world - and Cooper’s not here at the moment, so Sebastian finds the smirk more especially annoying than usual. “You asked  _where_  first, and I’m sorry, I’m just not telling you  _where_  until you answer  _how_.”

It’s not the first time he’s found himself facing down Blaine in a Mexican standoff - but it is one of the few times Sebastian thinks he can break it and win. “I’m taller and I know everywhere you’re ticklish.”

Blaine’s jaw drops. “You fight dirty.”

“You’re the one who told Kurt and I to set aside our differences and become friends.” A fact that Blaine looks like he’s regretting, and it’s hard for Sebastian to hold back his laughter at the furious glare he’s currently on the receiving end of.

The silence and Blaine’s glare stretch long between them until Blaine finally throws his hands in the air and gives in. “Fine. Adam was a senior at NYADA when Kurt was a freshman. Kurt joined up with his extracurricular glee club -”

“There is  _always_  a glee club, why  _is_ that?” Sebastian wonders, taking another bite out of his scone.

Blaine ignores him. “Anyway, they’ve been friends for years now.”

“And...?” There’s more than that, there has to be, because it’s not Kurt here, after all.

“And Adam makes these really great frosted lemon sugar cookies that Kurt loves.” A shrug. “But since Sweets is way up here on the Upper West Side and we’re still out in Bed-Stuy, we just don’t get them that often.”

Sebastian rolls his head to look at Blaine. “So you just happened to be in the neighborhood today?”

“No. I made a special trip to get these when Kurt got called into an audition for some off-Broadway thing. That’s where Adam is, by the way.” Finally getting to the point, Blaine passes his coffee cup to Sebastian and swipes the other half of the scone in trade, taking a huge bite out of it right away. “Jesus, this is amazing, you totally would never know any of his vegan stuff is vegan.”

“There’s still Bing cherry muffins in the basket, get your own,” Sebastian grumbles, but he’s not too annoyed, he’s preoccupied by the news Blaine just dropped on him. Adam goes to auditions so infrequently, it’s easy to forget he’s more than just a tea-drinking baking enthusiast and phenomenal part time lover. This, therefore, must be a very important audition. “Are he and Kurt trying out for the same part?”

Hm. Did that sound a little defensive? Hopefully it wasn’t too noticeable. Wanting Adam to kick Kurt’s butt is perfectly normal. Any friend would want his friend to succeed.

What? He  _would_.

“No, he got called in to read for a different part as soon as I walked in the door,” Blaine mumbles around a bite of pastry. “I guess Natasha couldn’t come in today like she was supposed to, because there’s some kind of emergency custody drama with her kid’s father. Will’s incommunicado with his girlfriend and boyfriend upstate. No one else could come in, Adam’s panicking, he really wants this audition, so next thing I know I’m wrapped in this huge purple apron and getting  _reamed_  by some hipster chick for not having the organic amaretto cupcakes with Nutella frosting today and  _what_  are you  _doing_  here?”

The lightning fast demand is accompanied by Blaine shoving up to his knees to get right up in Sebastian’s face. Reflex takes over and sends Sebastian scooting on his ass back up into the corner formed by the counter and the wall with the plate glass storefront window - he goes too fast and clocks his head on the glass. “Ow! I came to see Adam!”

Well, lots of people say really stupid shit when they hit their heads. That's his story and he's sticking to it.

Blaine just stares, scrutinizing Sebastian for several long, uncomfortable minutes, his mouth hinged just ever so slightly open in what looks like disbelief. His eyes are wider than usual, searching, astounded. “You what?”

 _Aw, shit_. There is probably no getting out of this, so Sebastian doesn’t even try. He can’t help the sigh he drags up all the way from his feet, though. “I came. To see. Adam.”

“But I don’t understand.” Slowly, Blaine is shaking his head. But for all that he’s claiming non-understanding, comprehension is dawning like a thousand suns all over his face, his mouth widening into a grin. “Like,  _see_ him see him?”

“Are we twelve?” Sebastian uses the counter and his back to wedge himself up to his feet, scooting past Blaine and rounding the display case to give himself a little room to walk and breathe. It’s not coming easy. “Yes, see him. Well, no - get that look off your face!” That look like Blaine is about ten seconds away from throwing a ticker tape parade, it’s not usually directed at Sebastian. It’s  _really_  unnerving and he really wants to deflect it. “We’re just friends.”

“Uh-uh, no, you know how to work the register. I heard you greeting people by name. You knew their  _orders_.” Sheer delight looks like it’s about to make Blaine explode in a cloud of glitter and small fluffy animals as he bounces up to his feet. “You come here a  _lot_."

"No, I -" But it's about as simple to stop Blaine Anderson in full-on excitement mode as it is to stop an oncoming train. All Sebastian can do is give up and let it all get revealed.

"And you spend a  _lot_  of time here. And I know you and I know Adam so I know the two of you don’t have enough in common to make that happen without something more going on than ‘friends’ so, you know," Blaine spins around with a huge grin on his face. "I’m thinking you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

Great. Maybe someone can explain it to Sebastian first so he's all clear himself?


	10. Side Swipe

“Adam!”

The familiar voice rings out across the theater lobby and there’s just enough time to brace himself before Kurt Hummel drops his satchel on the floor and flings himself around Adam in a huge, warm hug, seemingly oblivious of all the actors who are glaring at them as their focus on their scripts is utterly destroyed. He pulls back and his face is lit up like sunshine with his delight. “I can’t believe it’s you! What are you doing here?”

In all the years they've been friends, then briefly lovers, and now again friends, Adam’s never not loved how Kurt always asks the silliest, most obvious questions when he’s happy, barrelling headlong through a conversation with all the exuberance and aimless direction of an over-excited child. It draws an instant smile out of Adam despite his pre-audition anxiety. “Well, I was in the neighborhood and I thought, oh! I think I’ll pop into one of these theaters and see if my expensive American acting training might do me a couple of favors," he teases, squeezing his friend back just as tightly. "You know, just on the off chance.”

“Ugh, shut uuuuuuup,” Kurt chortles, rolling his eyes. “You know what I mean!” And his mercurial face shifts in an instant, eyes narrowing as he pulls back, hands still on Adam’s shoulders. “Wait. You better not be here trying out for Algernon.”

“I might be, what are you going to do about it?” Adam can't resist continuing to tease, delighting in the opportunity to fall into banter with one of his favorite people in the world. It brings a bit of normality back to his life that he hadn’t realized he’d been missing while he got wrapped up in...things. “Afraid of a little challenge?”

“ _Please_ , I survived Rachel Berry, I think I can take you on.” As quick as anything, another shift and there’s Kurt’s customary bravado, covering up just that slight hint of uncertainty. “No, seriously, Adam, are you here to audition for Algernon?”

It's an old familiar mannerism of Kurt's, that delicate layering of confidence-over-vulnerability. Adam's accustomed to it, has seen it a thousand times, and yet to see it  _now_  rattles him with an unexpected jolt and sets him off balance.

Off balance, because he's seen it so much lately, yet he hasn't seen Kurt in quite a long time. No, the eyes he's seen darken over in self-preservation have been hazel green, not blue, in a face as angular but that bit less open than Kurt's. Yet the expression is the same, from a person held as dear, and that's where Adam's mind stumbles and staggers.

Strange, to be reminded of Sebastian when he's looking in the face of the last ex-boyfriend he'd allowed to break his heart.

But the attention this jarring comparison requires is too much for this moment, with a surprise audition hanging over Adam's head and Kurt nervous and twitching in front of him. Adam shakes himself out of it and forces a laugh. “No, of course not! I’m hardly the type. I’m here for the part of Jack.”

Increasingly complicated life aside, Adam hadn't been able to pass up the opportunity to try out for this modern adaptation of his favorite Oscar Wilde play. He has no idea how he’d manage this and the bakery if he got the part, never even  _mind_  his love life, but when he'd gotten the call about  _Earnest_ , he'd all but bolted out the bakery door to get down to this Lower East Side theater.

_The bakery! Shit!_ It's Saturday, he remembers with chagrin, and Sebastian is about to - no, already  _has_  arrived at the bakery for their Saturday lesson, according to Adam's watch.  _Shit!_ He'd forgotten to send a text or call or anything, and Sebastian's going to make the trip to Sweets just to end up facing Blaine behind the counter.  _Shit!_  This is not how Adam wanted to introduce Sebastian to his friends.

Not that he actually had sorted out how/if/when he wanted to introduce Sebastian to his friends.

“There had better be a damn good reason that I haven’t seen you in four months.” The playfully sharp tone interrupts Adam’s muddling concern, making him blink and look over to see Kurt smirking at him, all self-assurance once again. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Adam replies in reflex to the unexpected query, still trying to work out how he’s going to make amends to Sebastian for today. He hasn’t been to yoga in a couple of weeks; apologizing may require more flexibility than he’s capable of mustering at present, and he’s going to want to  _thoroughly_  make things up to Sebastian.

It’ll be fun trying, though.

“You know exactly what I mean.  _Four months_ , Adam.” Kurt’s right eyebrow is up at an angle that would make Pythagoras fall to pieces in raptures of joy. “Something’s going on, and don’t give me the ‘oh I’m just busy with work’ excuse, it’s never been  _this_  busy.”

Kurt is getting nosy. And When Kurt Hummel gets nosy, it does not bode well for the subject of his prying, because he has the tenacity of a terrier. It's quite terrifying being on the receiving end of it, actually. “Christmas is coming?” Adam offers, putting on his best hopeful grin, praying it will shake Kurt off a bit. And technically, it’s not a lie. Christmas  _is_  coming...

...in eight months.

Kurt’s eyebrow arches ever so impossibly higher until it’s nearly disappeared into his hairline and his lips are pursed tight, twitching as though he’s suppressing laughter. “Adam, please.”

 

He'd known that wasn't going to work. Hadn't he?

It won't stop him from continuing to try, though.“Well, it  _has_  actually been rather busy lately.” This is true! It is! “Theodora’s out of the country again so I’m basically running the bakery for her. Which I do anyway! You know how she is.” The owner of Sweets is an eccentric Belgian woman with a penchant for hiring based on instinct rather than experience - she’d hired Adam two years ago despite a disastrous mix-up between baking powder and baking soda - who never spends more than a month at a time overseeing her various businesses before taking off to go globetrotting. “I’ve lost a couple of employees, as well - I’m sorry Kurt, I’m just swamped.”

 

Kurt’s other eyebrow goes up as he pokes his tongue into his cheek and it does a full three slow revolutions before he finally reaches out and before Adam realizes quite what’s going on, he finds himself dragged off into a corner. “Kurt! Your bag -”

“Is right there where I can keep an eye on it, and anyway we know all of these guys,” Kurt points out, waving around the theater lobby. “Eight years, Adam. Eight  _years_  of friendship. Do you really think I’m buying the ‘work’ excuse? If it were just work you’d still at least text. The only reason I knew you were still alive is because your mother would have emailed me.” He pokes one pointy finger out to jab Adam in the arm. “We’ve all left you alone because this kind of silence means the same thing every time. You -” he punctuates with further hard pokes, “have. A. Boyfriend.”

“That’s not true! He’s not my boyfriend.” And out trip the words before Adam can stop them, leaving him mentally cursing as Kurt bounces up and down in his excitement.

“I knew it!” Another of Kurt’s bonecrushing hugs and a yelp of excitement sets Adam’s ears ringing. “Tell me everything!”

“There’s nothing really to tell.” Yes, he’s stalling, and for good reason. He has no idea what exactly it is he and Sebastian have going on, no idea how to explain it. It's not  _just_  the sex that's kept him isolated. That's rather a large part, admittedly, a nice cozy cocoon of a part, but not all of it, not in the slightest.

 

No, it's the whole  _I’ve met this terribly surly advertising professional who has a mild alcohol problem and emotional intimacy issues, you wouldn’t think we’ve got anything in common but he’s really very sweet once you get to know him and besides he’s amazing in bed, he’s got a mouth like a Hoover and I like to watch him sleep because it’s the only time of day he’s completely relaxed and peaceful and I don’t really want to tell you any of this because that would mean actually examining my feelings and I just don’t think that’s a good idea yet_ thing in the end, and he's been avoiding it,  _they've_  been avoiding it, but it doesn't look like avoidance is going to be permitted any longer. “Ah, he’s, ah -”

“Will the actors auditioning for the role of Algernon Moncrieff please assemble in the auditorium?” A pleasant looking girl with a riot of red curls and a Juilliard sweatshirt bounces into the lobby, clipboard held high. “We’ll be starting the first round of readings in about five minutes.”

Saved by the bell, Adam thinks, but before he can let out a sigh of relief, Kurt’s wagging an admonishing finger in his face and glaring. “Don’t even  _think_  this is over,” he warns, pulling out his phone and waving it. “I’m coming right back out here as soon as I’m done, and I’ve been stuck on level 65 of Candy Crush for two weeks.” He lifts his chin in his inimitably stubborn Kurt Hummel way, and Adam’s heart sinks. “I  _will_  be waiting for you, and I want to know everything.”

 

 

He saunters off, snatching up his bag before disappearing into the auditorium and leaving Adam speechless in the lobby, all thoughts of his audition completely flown from his head.

 

 

How can Adam tell Kurt  _everything_  about what’s happening with Sebastian when he isn’t really sure he knows  _anything_ at all?


	11. Head On

By now the basket of day-old pastries is sitting on the floor between them, a few pecan sandies and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies all that remains by the time Sebastian finishes telling Blaine about how he and Adam met.

"'That's where the tea is?'" Blaine asks, and it must be hurting his cheeks now to have been smiling skeptically for over an hour. "That's what he said, and that actually  _worked_  on you?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Sebastian grumbles, stuffing a sandie into his mouth and chasing it down with the last of the three coffees he'd brought with him. The bakery has been pretty dead, only a few customers coming in to clear out the last cupcakes and bundt slices. Without Adam there, the display cases can't be restocked, so they've just flipped the door sign to closed and crashed out on the floor to hide from any annoyed  _babka_ -seeking passersby. "You make me sound like a jerk."

Blaine rolls his eyes skyward. "You  _are_  a jerk, though. And..." He trails off, forehead furrowing into a dark frown. "I don't know. It was cute, Sebastian. Charming.  _Adam_  is cute and charming. You don't  _do_ cute and charming. You never have."

"You're cute," Sebastian points out, a little stung at the accurate but unnecessarily harsh assessment of his prickly character. "Unless you've forgotten about high school. And when you're not being a dick, you're pretty charming, yourself."

"And in all the years since we were  _teenagers_ , I've come to the conclusion that your infatuation with me was the result of a temporary personality glitch, " comes the snappy rejoinder. "Every guy you've hooked up with since then has been the same - snotty, preppy, and straight out of a J Crew catalog. In fact, didn't that Greg guy model for -"

"I think I see your point," Sebastian grits out, teeth grinding together at the mention of Greg's name. The last of the cookie in his hand crumbles to dust all over the bakery floor, giving him the perfect excuse to push up to his feet and stalk off to get the broom. "You're saying I'm usually a shallow jerk."

"With a side of sleazy, if I'm being honest." Blaine squinches up his face in a way that Sebastian remembers from years ago, his tone of voice identical to the one that delivered  _and that? Wasn't classy._ It gets Sebastian's back up in a hurry.

"First you call me a jerk, then I'm sleazy. That’s great.” With short, angry strokes, Sebastian begins sweeping up the mess he made. But it’s a small mess, and he’s really angry, and they have no idea when Adam will be back anyway to do all the actual closing procedures, so he begins to sweep the entire shop. Might as well save Adam as much trouble as he can while he’s trying not to punch his friend in the nose. “You’re a good friend, Blaine. Really amazing. Remind me to give you a call right away if I’m ever feeling suicidal, okay?”

His fists are clenched tight around the broomstick, knuckles already starting to ache from the grip, and he knows his face is flushed red with anger because he feels like he’s coming down with the flu. As critical as he is of himself - and he is - it hurts more to hear everything Sebastian’s ever thought of himself coming out of Blaine’s mouth. If the second-kindest person he knows thinks he’s basically an undateable waste of space, then what must Adam think, deep down, that maybe he’s not saying because he’s just so  _nice_  and the sex is good so why rock the boat?

After years of refinement, Sebastian has spiraling into self-loathing down to a sadly efficient science, and he doesn’t realize he’s gotten lost in his thoughts until Blaine is trying to tug the broom out of his hands. “I’m sorry,” comes the simple apology, a deep breath and a sigh of guilt. When Sebastian looks up and blinks, Blaine does look contrite - as he always does when he realizes maybe he’s crossed a line. With another tug, the broom is out of Sebastian’s hands and Blaine is yanking him into a hug. “You’re right. I...I am being a dick,” Blaine admits, his voice muffled from speaking into Sebastian’s chest. “I was surprised, and concerned about Adam, and that got away from me. You’re really not a bad guy and I know it, and I apologize.”

 _Doesn’t make me a good guy._ “Yeah, but you have a point,” Sebastian mumbles, shrugging his friend off and moving to retrieve the broom and resume his work. “Adam and I are very different people, and maybe I’m not necessarily the good kind of people for him.”

He can feel Blaine’s eyes on his back for a long time. “I think he’s the good kind of people for you, though.” Footsteps tap away, the sink in the back runs for a moment, and then Sebastian hears Blaine quickly wiping down the countertops before moving on to open the empty display cases. “I mean, if you keep letting him be.” Silence. “ _Do_  you want to let him be?”

“I’m still seeing him, am I not?” He knows he has a reputation for love ‘em and leave ‘em, but goddamn, he’s not heartless and it’s not like he’s always the one doing the leaving.

 _Just ask Greg_.

“But is that  _why_  you’re still seeing him?” Blaine persists, pulling the empty trays out of the cases. “I know I’m being nosy. I’m just trying to figure it out. Without, you know, being a complete dick again.” The trays rattle as Blaine stacks them in his arms, preparing to carry them to the dishwasher. “So. Without being a dick, based strictly on your methods to date, casting no aspersions on your character or Adam’s. I’m stating for the record that more than a few...ah,  _encounters_  is usually not your thing, and visiting your hook-up at his place of business is definitely out of the ordinary.”

Sebastian has to pitch his voice up louder to make sure Blaine hears him in the back room. “I’m aware.”

“And I would like to know why,” comes the answering shout as the industrial dishwasher fires up and fills Sweets with steam, lemony soap smell, and the sound of gallons of running water. Blaine emerges, drying his hands off. “Adam can take care of himself, so I’m not exactly  _worried_ , really, but I would really prefer it if you weren’t dicking him around just for the sake of getting laid. And I still don’t know why the tea pick-up line worked on you.”

“I just...I like him, all right?” It hurts like his teeth are being pulled to admit it out loud, when he’s still struggling with really admitting the  _scope_  of his feelings to himself. And even now, Sebastian feels himself cringe back from the space in the air where the words seem to be floating, as if they could touch him, could burn him.

The last time he realized just how much he liked someone is how he got here in the first place, actually. He’s leery about having it happen again, even though he  _knows_  Adam isn’t Greg, there’s  _nothing_  of Greg in this...thing...Sebastian has with Adam at all, except for the lingering and pervasive sense of panic and the anger that still floods him whenever he thinks of his... _ex._  Former. Erstwhile. Whatever Greg was before he became a bad dream.

 _There’s nothing of Greg in Adam_ , he reminds himself again, the words like a mantra he repeats to himself occasionally when he feels the panic on the rise, as he does now. “I like Adam. I have no intention of hurting him,” he repeats firmly, as much to convince himself as Blaine.

But there’s still worry in Blaine’s eyes and in the lines of his face, and he opens his mouth to speak - Sebastian can almost hear him saying  _yeah you never do though_  -

\- and their cell phones ring, both of them, Blaine’s with the Keane song Sebastian knows means it’s Kurt calling, and Sebastian’s with a couple of lines from the Joni Mitchell song that Adam had been singing along to that first morning so long ago.

_I could drink a case of you..._

He ignores Blaine’s raised eyebrow and turns away to answer. “Hello?”

“Hello, you,” Adam’s cheerful voice greets, warm and fond and always like an embrace. “Listen, I’m sorry about not being there this morning...well, for not being there  _and_  for not texting you to tell you. I hope Blaine explained things?”

“Ah, yeah.” Casting a glance back over his shoulder, Sebastian watches Blaine speaking with considerable animation to Kurt. “Blaine and I know each other, actually. Old friends.”

“Oh, then you must know Kurt as well!” Now Adam sounds as pleased as if someone had just presented him with a particularly adorable stuffed animal, a box of his favorite tea, and cookies he hadn’t had to make himself. “That’s perfect, then.”

“How exactly is it perfect?” Sebastian cannot help but be suspicious. It’s not that he doesn’t like Kurt - they get along just fine now - it’s that after starting his day with the whole Blaine Coincidence, he can’t help but question everything.

“Well, I’m here with Kurt - as I’m sure Blaine  _must_  have explained, then - and we’re all done here. We were thinking of going out tonight, does that sound all right?”

No, not really, it doesn’t. Because that sounds like a double date, and Sebastian is having enough trouble working out the blurry lines of his feelings and tolerance and understanding. It’s too much, too fast, too  _weird_.

Blaine, of course, is no help. When Sebastian looks back over his shoulder again, his friend is standing with the phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear, both thumbs up and a hopeful, encouraging smile on his face.  _Say yes_ , he mouths, no doubt wanting to see for himself how Sebastian and Adam get on so he can go on trying to ‘figure it out’. Or laugh at it. Or both. Sebastian sighs. “What did you have in mind?”

“Dancing?”

He wants to say no, make his excuses, say that he’s tired, do  _anything_  but go on a possible double date like thing, but then his mind supplies a fleeting image of the two of them under the lights of a club, the pulse of a bass line running under their feet and up into their close-pressed bodies, sweat and heavy breathing and the promise of  _later_  hot in his ear.

He’s never entirely sure whether he hates his brain more when it’s dragging him into the murky depths of self-loathing, or when it tempts him into circumstances his first instinct is to avoid.

He wonders if it’ll get warm enough and if Adam might get tipsy enough to strip down to his undershirt like he sometimes does when they go dancing, tucking whatever henley he wore through his belt so he can hang on to it, strong arms shaped by exercise and excessive dough kneading dappled with the different lights of the strobes and sweat running alongside that one vein on his forearm that Sebastian likes to trace with his finger -

It drives the Kurt and Blaine factor of the evening entirely out of his consciousness, replacing it with naked skin and slow kisses, gentle teasing tickles and gloriously throaty low laughter.

Sebastian can put up with a lot for the promise of that, though he doesn’t really feel like closely examining why that is at the moment. “I’m in,” he answers, mostly with his dick though yes, there’s a part there that simply sings in delight about getting to see Adam today after all. “We’re nearly done cleaning up here.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to,” and Sebastian can all but see Adam just melting in happiness, which calls up a corresponding...er... _warm fuzzy_  feeling in himself, that he could make that happen. That, too, is shoved away to be thought about later, or never at all, as Adam continues. “Why don’t you send Blaine home, I’ll meet you there so I can finish closing up, and then you and I can go have a shower and get ready at mine? You left some stuff there last time we went clubbing, it’s clean, I washed it.”

 _I think he’s the good kind of people for you, though_ , comes the echo of Blaine in his mind and a resurgence of warmth in the pit of Sebastian’s stomach.

Yep. He’s screwed.


	12. Intersection

“Stop pacing,” Blaine advises mildly, standing on his tiptoes to better scan the throng of people on the sidewalk. “You’ll just get all rumpled and sweaty. I mean, I like you all rumpled and sweaty, but unless you want to go home right now and change...”

 Kurt sniffs, surreptitiously brushing a slightly sweaty palm over his red jeans. “I do not sweat. I gleam.” Not that he cannot concede that Blaine has a point. With effort, he manages to bring himself down from a steady pacing stride to a moderately excitable bouncing in place. "And hush. I'm just really excited about meeting Adam's new guy."

 Blaine's smile is fondly tolerant. "I know you are."

 But he doesn't, really, Kurt knows. He  _can't._ “You don’t  _really_  understand, Blaine." It's hard not to pace. Maybe they should head inside the club and get a drink so Kurt can calm his nerves. "This is  _important_  to me. I’ve wanted to see Adam find someone for years -”

 “Kurt, I  _know_.”

 “He’s my friend, it’s not about how he and I didn’t work out, just that he’s my friend and a really good person, and I simply think he deserves to have what you and I have, Blaine.” He’s not bragging or being smug, Kurt tells himself. Not much, anyway. What he and Blaine has is good, amazing even, warm and loving and if not perfect, well, it’s all the better for not being so. It’s perfect  _for them_ , and he wants Adam to find that same sense of compatibility, of coming home, of fun and sex and fights and making up.

 Someone who will put up with Adam’s baking at odd hours, his endearing but occasionally baffling whimsical streak, and his predilection for excessive tea consumption. No - not just put up with, but  _enjoy_  these things. And who will in turn be funny, intelligent, and excellent in bed, of course.

 Not that Kurt has, you know, worried about this at all or anything in all the years of watching Adam lope happily through life without seeing anyone more than three times. That he’s seen whoever his new squeeze is for a few months is astonishing. Promising, but astonishing.

 Still. “I have a good feeling about this one,” Kurt decides, beginning to pace again and ignoring both Blaine’s indulgent grin and the irritated glares of the passersby he’s passively-aggressively forcing out of his way. “He’s clearly got good taste, and he must be at  _least_  articulate and passably good looking, or Adam wouldn’t have bothered.”

 Blaine chuckles. “You make Adam sound shallow, you know he’s not.”

 “He has eyes, doesn’t he?” It’s difficult to keep his pace down, but Kurt tries. He’s just too excited about this meeting! Seeing Adam’s eyes alight, and his animation as he talked about his Mystery Guy was too adorable, even if he hadn’t really said  _much_.

 Kurt didn’t even know the guy’s name. Or what he looked like. Adam had said he wanted to unveil everything tonight. All Kurt had managed to get out of Adam was that Mr. Mysterious was from Ohio too, and they’d met in a bar, and they weren’t really serious but they liked being around each other. What Adam didn’t say was that it was more than just sex, but after several months and an established routine of at least two “dates” a week, Kurt could read between the lines.

 This was big. This was huge. This was driving Kurt insane with the not knowing!

  _They have to get here soon_ _,_  he concludes.  _I need to pass judgment...er...I mean, I need to make sure this guy is good enough for the best man I know._

 Blaine stretches up on his tiptoes again. “I wouldn’t worry, Kurt. I kn- I’m sure this guy is really good for Adam. Or Adam’s good for him. Or both! Both would work. I’m sure it’s both.”

 “They’re late.” To hell with keeping his pace slow. Anxiety is going to eat Kurt alive.

 “By five minutes.” Blaine’s voice is irritatingly calm. “They...” He lets out a chuckle. “They’re probably having sex.”

 This does stop Kurt in his tracks. “Adam would never be late for anything because of sex. Even if it was the best sex in the world.”

 Blaine shrugs, looking strangely knowing and still calm in the most annoying way in the world, because obviously there is no way he could know  _anything_. If Kurt didn’t know, then Blaine couldn’t know, because while they were all three friends, Kurt knew Adam best. And Adam would never. End of story. “If you say so.”

 “I do say so.” Kurt spins on his heel and commences, once again, to wearing a hole in the three square chunk of sidewalk he’s claimed in the name of his anxiety. “In fact, I’ll bet you ten dollars, Blaine Anderson, that there was a train delay. That’s all.”

 One eyebrow cocks right up, and Blaine grins. “Simple as that?”

 “Simple as that.”

 Still grinning, so bright it could light the night sky and radiating an air of confidence that would worry Kurt if he didn’t know Adam so well and wasn’t so very sure of himself, Blaine sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Then you won’t mind if I see your ten dollars...and raise you two weeks of you doing anything I want you to do.”

 Kurt lifts his chin. “You’re on.”

 “That includes you cleaning the apartment in those red vinyl booty shorts and the furry go-go boots you bought for Halloween that one year,” Blaine warns. “I really like you in that outfit.”

 “I look forward to chaining you to the bed and not letting you come for at  _least_  two hours,” Kurt retorts, looking up to smirk at his beloved boyfriend. “And you have to feed me peeled grapes any time I ask. Naked. Oh! And -”

 He had more in mind. He really did. Kurt keeps a running list of sexy and silly things to make Blaine do when they have these bets.

 It’s just that he’s completely lost his train of thought because Adam is strolling up to them right now - and he has, of  _all_  fucking people, Sebastian Smythe in tow.

 And they have definitely, by the grins on their faces and the completely disastrous state of their hair, been fucking.

 Kurt is an iceberg. A baffled, horrified, slightly angry iceberg standing in the middle of a crowded New York City sidewalk, and he  _cannot_  believe his eyes.

 Blaine's fingers slip down to entwine with his and give a reassuring squeeze. "I didn't tell you who it was because I wanted to see the look on your face."

 Kurt is possibly going to kill them all.

 “You guys just won me $10 and two weeks of Kurt in vinyl booty shorts,” Blaine is informing their friends cheerfully, grinning like a demon as they laugh. “Your first drinks are totally on me.”

 “No argument here,” Adam says, slinging an arm around Blaine in an affectionate half-hug. “I’m afraid I’ll need to ask for pictures, though. Seriously this time. Do you think you can get a Santa hat on him? We could go in together to make a batch of Christmas cards, we’d make a killing.”

  _I’ll make a killing_ , Kurt howls internally.  _I’m tempted to make one right here and now._

 From the corner of his eye he sees Sebastian glancing at him, a little conspiratorial grin of his own in place. A pointy elbow digs gently into Kurt’s upper arm.  “Do we want to know?”

 It’s like the air being let out of a balloon - with the abrupt jab of a pin. “What are you doing with my ex-boyfriend?” Kurt blurts in reply, still not able to get his head around this development in the slightest and no longer able to even  _try_.

 The desperate query doesn’t quite get the response he’s braced himself for, though, which had been expecting everyone to laugh heartily at him and for this bizarro world to hopefully right itself. No, instead, Sebastian’s eyes widen even as his mouth drops open and he turns to Adam. “Ex-boyfriend!”

 Oh, good. At least Kurt’s not the only one not in on the joke. The bad news it, it’s not a joke. It’s a thing. A real thing. His ex-boyfriend and his high-school-nemesis-turned-friend are sleeping together. That...that is  _just peachy_.

 "I didn't tell you about that because I wanted to see the look on your face," Blaine tells Sebastian.

 "You are a menace," Kurt snaps, ignoring how Blaine’s face falls into a wounded expression at this. Blaine will live and this is his fault anyway. His penchant for facilitating Hollywood style wacky hijinks is endearing most of the time, when it isn't leading to...to...well, this! To things that should never, ever happen in any right-side-up world! Kurt cradles his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “I need to sit down.”

 How does this even  _work_? They're two entirely different people! Trying to understand just makes a dull throb bounce between Kurt's temples.

 “I think I’m with you,” he hears Sebastian mumble before his arm is taken and he’s steered over to a nearby bench. Once he’s seated, Kurt feels a hand take his and give it a squeeze, like Blaine had done, but the long, thin fingers are Sebastian’s. “Okay,” Sebastian announces, and Kurt can just  _hear_  the stern glare in his voice. “Explain.”

 “It’s quite simple, darling,” Adam begins and Kurt cannot help but shudder at the endearment, it seems so  _strange_  to know it’s referring to Sebastian of all people. Who is his friend now, yes, but is also the last person in the world he can see tolerating pet names and endearments. Yet when Kurt pries one eye open, it’s to see Sebastian’s glare melting into a smile that can only be described as  _goofy_  as Adam continues on. “We - that is to say, Kurt and I - dated for a very short time in college. Very short. I tried my best, but he was just too wound up in this fellow here -” he winks at Blaine, who grins back - “for me to be terribly successful. Still, it was a nice time.”

 Sebastian lets out a loud bark of a guffaw, clearly much quicker to accepting things than Kurt can manage. “You weren’t kidding, you  _do_  like the uptight ones.” At this, Blaine’s grin gives way to a fit of laughter that bends him double and makes him slap at his knees.

 “Hey!” Kurt protests, opening both eyes now and resisting the urge to pout like a small child.  _Et tu, Blaine? I will get you, I really will._ “I resent that.”

 “You  _resemble_  it,” comes the answering scoff from Sebastian, but his face relaxes into a conciliatory smile that belies the crack and he pats Kurt on the shoulder before standing up and turning to haul Kurt to his feet.  “Fine. I will admit you are  _much_  better these days. Can we go dance now?”

 Kurt winces at the mental image of Adam and Sebastian dancing together. It is simultaneously hot and disturbing and there is no way he can cope with this in his current state. “Can I have a drink first?”


	13. Roundabout

“I can’t wait to get those shorts on you,” Blaine gloats, sailing through the club door that a grinning Adam is holding open.

Kurt sniffs. “I don’t think it counts when you cheated to win. You had foreknowledge. That is completely unfair.” And specifically because of that, he has no intention whatsoever of fulfilling the bet.  _It's not welshing if the other person cheated to win_ , he tells himself with no small sense of uplifting virtue.

He wonders for a brief second if Blaine’s cheating can be leveraged into a lacy panties fashion show.  _Ooh._ The thought is filed away for later.

Behind them, Sebastian chuckles. “As much as I also enjoy seeing Kurt in those shorts,” he chimes in, and Kurt can just imagine his smirk, “and I do, I admit that was a significant highlight of Pride for me last year...I have to agree with him, Blaine. You did kind of cheat.”

Blaine's grin droops into a pout, but he obviously knows he can't win with both Sebastian and Kurt arrayed against him. Kurt glances over his shoulder and exchanges winks with Sebastian. "Thank you, Sebastian."

"Any time." Sebastian pauses. "But... _could_  you wear the shorts for us all sometime? I'm asking for a friend."

"Ahem. I think we all know you're asking for your incorrigible perverse libido." Adam, having stayed behind to let a few more people into the bar before releasing the door, joins them now, pushing back the sleeves of his thin heathered purple henley. "Might as well be honest, darling."

Sebastian raises an eyebrow. "Because you weren't thinking it, too?"

"I didn't say that," Adam demurs, and Kurt has to laugh at the transparently false innocence of his expression. Blaine, however, is still sulking.

"Why does everyone want to see my boyfriend in tiny little shorts?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest. In the next instant, his brow furrows with confusion and he looks over at Sebastian. "And why were you ogling my boyfriend at Pride?”

Sebastian slings a companionable arm around Blaine's shoulders and jostles him a little. “Relax, Blaine. One, my friend Kurt here has a great ass. I am man enough to admit this honestly. Two, he was at Pride in red vinyl booty shorts. Everyone was ogling him, and anyway, I was surrounded by extremely attractive half-naked men, who  _didn't_  I ogle?"

Adam clears his throat. "Well, me, for starters." He gently moves Blaine out of the way and takes the newly vacated space next to Sebastian, wrapping his arms around Sebastian’s waist and snuggling him close. Kurt watches in amazement as Sebastian not only allows this clear display of public affection, he leans into it, turning his head with a slow grin as Adam nuzzles at his neck and continues on. “We can change that this year, if you like. I know where Kurt got those shorts. They have different colors, I look really good in blue.”

“Hm. Tempting. Is there a price for this?” And they’re flirting, actual honest to god  _flirting_  and Kurt is both fascinated and feeling a little nauseated. These are his friends, his good friends, and while on the one hand he likes to see them happy - and they are clearly happy in ways Kurt's not really comfortable contemplating, largely because of the mental images he'd prefer not to entertain about his friends - on the other it's sort of like watching a cobra and a mongoose being friendly.

It's just not something you're going to find in nature.

"I really do need a drink," he groans as Sebastian and Adam slip away to the dance floor, hands in each other's back pockets.

Oh, wait.

That's...not Adam's pocket.

"Make it a double," Kurt advises Blaine, and then he bolts up to the second floor mezzanine.

It takes two hours of dancing and drinking before is nicely liquified and able to pause and think about things. The bartenders here at Laser don't skimp on the alcohol, which is one reason why the bar is so popular. That isn't usually Kurt's favorite reason to come here, but tonight it certainly helps.

He's been down on the dance floor with Blaine a few times already, and even joined in a few switch off rounds with Adam and Sebastian, playfully grinding against his friends and slapping their asses, getting more and more raucous as the night - and the alcohol - flows on.

But it's hot in Laser, he needs a break and a bottle of water, which Blaine has been sweet enough to volunteer to get for him. Blaine is far more sober, but then, Blaine doesn't have the worries that Kurt does tonight. Or if he does, he hasn't revealed them. On the contrary, he seems to think that Adam and Sebastian hooking up is great.

Kurt focuses his watery gaze down on the dance floor, zeroing in on his friends with what he considers to be a fairly impressive immediacy, given that he's about five dirty martinis deep.

If he's being honest with himself, it's a mesmerizing thing, watching Adam and Sebastian dance. They've been in their own little world this entire time, absorbed completely in each other with no attention paid to anyone else unless Kurt and Blaine were with them. On the occasions that Kurt has escaped up here to the second floor, he has literally watched two guys at two separate times come up and start grinding on Sebastian's ass, eyeing Adam up and down, only to eventually wander off with confusion written all over their faces when neither Adam not Sebastian so much as acknowledges anyone else exists by the flicker of an eye.

Sebastian's button down is open to his waist, the sheen of sweat on his skin reflecting a rainbow from the laser show overhead. And Adam ditched his henley an hour ago, is down to his low slung jeans and a white undershirt, fingers hooked through the belt loops on Sebastian's jeans and holding them so tight together there might as well be nothing between them at all.  _My god, why don't they just fuck on the dance floor?_  Kurt marvels, watching Sebastian's hands slip down into the back of Adam's jeans, the flex of his fingers around Adam's ass cheeks clearly visible behind the denim.  _Just strip down and go at it, I don't think anyone would mind..._

He knows he wouldn’t - his own cock is trying quite valiantly to rise at the sight of them, alcohol excess and usual mental prohibitions against fantasizing about his friends be damned. Fifty people around them in various stages of undress, a lot of them going at things much more explicit and possibly illegal in public, but it’s Adam and Sebastian that everyone’s watching out of the corner of their eyes.

Because it’s more than just sex - there’s a magnetism between them that Kurt can almost reach out and touch. This is the part that was baffling Kurt even when he was sober, chasing itself around and around in his mind until he  _needed_  the alcohol to calm down. The fact that they take pleasure in each other is not really a surprise. They’re both pleasure seekers of the highest order, Kurt knows, and they’re both  _very_ good in bed - as he also knows, thanks to Blaine’s collegiate interest in threesomes and their inability to decide between their friends. No, the sexual attraction isn’t the confusing part at all.

And he  _knows_  Adam has this weird thing for people who are a little damaged, a little off kilter. He’s a nurturer, a caretaker, and hedonism is the best tool he has in his arsenal, reserved for very special cases. Very special cases that, apparently, include Sebastian. So that, too, isn't in itself inexplicable.

This is where Kurt gets stuck: what can Sebastian give in return to Adam? He’s a rootless hedonist, a fuck-and-runner, he doesn’t do relationships and he’s not the dating type. Kurt knows Adam wouldn’t  _expect_  anything in return, but he  _deserves_ it. Sebastian is nice enough on a good day, and a good friend, but...

Kurt doesn’t get it.

The chill of cold, wet plastic on his bare forearm startles him. "I could hear you thinking from downstairs," Blaine says, laughter in his voice and concern on his face. "Come on. Let it out."

 _No problem._ "This shouldn't be happening," Kurt blurts out, waving frantically at the scene on the dance floor. "It's going to be a mess when it blows up, I know it, you know it, how can you be so calm about this?" He winces at the excess hysteria he can hear in his words, but whatever. He's drunk and Adam is his friend more than Sebastian is when you get right down to it, so he's entitled to a little hysteria, maybe.

Kurt watches as Blaine sucks in a deep breath through his nose, his face just a little twisted up in thought, in the way Kurt recognizes as Blaine trying to work out the best way to reveal something he knows Kurt isn't likely to throw a party about. Lips pursed, he finally reaches out and takes Kurt's arm, pushing through the sweaty, pulsing crowd of clubgoers to get to the far wall, where curtained alcoves conceal trysting sets of lovers in dark niches. Blaine peers carefully into the alcoves, ignoring Kurt's protests, until at last one turns up empty. He shoves Kurt inside and down onto the padded bench, yanking the heavy velvet curtains shut and muffling the club noise to more acceptable levels for talking and being heard. "Drink your water," he orders, shoving the bottle into Kurt's hand.

"Blaine," Kurt starts to protest, but a hand over his mouth in the dark shuts him up.  _How am I supposed to drink my water now?_  But he doesn’t move, just waits for Blaine to make sense of this.

"Kurt. Please." Blaine takes another deep breath. “Adam is a big boy,” he begins.

So much for sense.

Reaching up, Kurt peels Blaine’s fingers away from his lips. “Adam is -” But that’s all he gets out before the hand returns to silence him again.

“Adam is a big boy,” Blaine repeats. “And I’m pretty sure Sebastian is in love with him. Or what passes for love for Sebastian, anyway.”

Kurt ducks away from under Blaine’s hand, successfully this time, and cracks open his bottle of water, welcoming the slip of icy coldness down his parched throat. It’s difficult not to choke on it, because he wants to laugh. “This isn’t a joking matter,” he confines himself to replying, allowing a tiny scoff as he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.

“I agree.” The alcove isn’t big enough to allow Blaine to pace, but the energy Kurt can feel coming off of him says he wishes he could. Blaine always thinks better when he can pace. “I’m not joking, Kurt. I spent hours with Sebastian today. Remember Greg?”

“Who could forget?” Kurt answers, his question dry as bone. He’d never liked Greg. Greg reminded him too much of a Sebastian that never grew out of any stage of being a supercilious asshole. For all that he’s worried about Adam, he’s at least glad that Adam’s presence in Sebastian’s life would seem to indicate they will never have to endure another grueling dinner with Greg The Gargoyle. “Such a charming dickhead.”

“And yet you and I both know that Sebastian thought the sun rose and set on Greg’s head, right? Even though Sebastian never said anything, we knew. Why did we know?”

Kurt doesn’t even need the view of the dance floor to answer that question. His heart begins a slow descent into his shoes. “Because of the PDA.”

“Okay...well, that’s how  _you_ knew.” The water bottle is tugged out of Kurt’s hand and Blaine finishes it off. “I knew because of how he looked at Greg. You know, when Greg wasn’t looking.”

This is not reassuring in the slightest. Kurt slumps back against the wall. “But Greg’s gone, like everyone else Sebastian’s ever been with. Sebastian flirts with guys, he sleeps with guys, he walks away from guys. This is my point, this is why  _I’m_  worried, why aren’t  _you_  worried? You like Adam!”

“No, I’m worried too.” Blaine’s fingers are still cool and damp from the water bottle when he reaches over to curl them in with Kurt’s. “But I don’t think  _Sebastian_ left  _Greg_.”

“And that makes you worry, I don’t know,  _less_?” Kurt tries to imagine what a potentially heartbroken Sebastian might look like. It makes his head hurt, he is neither sober enough nor drunk enough to make this make sense.

  
“Kind of. Maybe. I don’t know, Kurt. I don’t have all the answers...Sebastian wouldn’t talk about what happened.” When Blaine sits down, his shoulders move against Kurt’s in a shrug. “He never does, obviously, so all I ever have to go on is what I see. I’ve gotten pretty good at reading him over the years with all the practice I get. So...”

"So...you think Greg left Sebastian and that Sebastian’s in love with Adam.” Kurt is neither sober enough nor drunk enough to deal with any of this. It is making no sense to him at all.

“I think...we can’t discount the possibility.” The sound of Blaine’s hair moving against the wall as he shakes his head fills the little alcove before he leans on Kurt's shoulder. “What about Adam?”

“You know Adam is  _gone_ , you could see it from space.” Remembering the sheer glow of joy on Adam’s face every time he talked about his mystery man this afternoon, Kurt can’t deny the truth of that. His every touch and glance at Sebastian is as transparent as a windowpane. Adam is happy, and Kurt should be happy for him. And hey, Sebastian certainly seems to be happy with Adam, as strange as it seems.

Maybe he  _should_  relax.

The curtain of the alcove swishes open. “God, it took for-fucking-ever to find you guys,” Sebastian announces, Adam draped shirtless over his back and both of them grinning like they just got away with robbing a bank. “We pissed off two twinks, a bear and his cub, and a drag queen fixing her falsies when we were searching for you. I wish I had a Gay Bar Bingo Card right now.”

“We’re ready to go,” Adam adds, running his fingers up along Sebastian’s throat. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Kurt stares. “We’ve only been here like, two and a half hours.”

“And we’re ready to leave,” Sebastian begins, only to cut off with a shudder when Adam lowers his head into the curve of Sebastian’s neck and begins to mouth slow, wet kisses along the length of it. “Fuck.”

“That’s the idea,” Kurt vaguely hears Adam mumble against Sebastian’s skin.  _Oh god._

Sebastian sags and only keeps himself from hitting the floor by gripping the curtains tighter. “If you want me to be able to get us out to a cab, you need to stop,” he warns, his eyes half-shut with pleasure.

A warm, filthy chuckle as Adam’s other hand slides down Sebastian’s chest. “Think of it as a challenge, darling.”

“Gotta go,” comes Sebastian’s groan, and they’re gone, leaving Kurt and Blaine staring out of the alcove after them.

Kurt only recovers when his open mouthed shock leads to his tongue completely drying out. With a swallow, he blinks and shakes his head. “That just happened,” he croaks.

“That  _is_  happening,” Blaine corrects. He shoves himself up to his feet and turns to pull Kurt up as well. “It’s happening, Kurt. It’s a voluntary and mutual thing, I swear. Whatever it is.”

“What if it...” He  _wants_  to be happy for his friends, he  _does_ , but worry fills his throat like cotton and he can’t get the rest of his sentence out.

  
But Blaine understands him, as he always has. “Let's just be happy for them  _now_.” Pulling Kurt close, he runs his hands up and down Kurt’s arms, being soothing, comforting, an oasis of calm in the pulsating madness of the club and the evening. “Is it really so hard to believe that for some really strange reason we don't know yet, they could be good for each other?"

Kurt's head is really, really starting to throb - no, wait, that's the dubstep. It doesn't help. "I don't know."

"Come on." Blaine tugs at his arm. "Let’s get out of here, get your mind off things. I have an idea.”

“More alcohol?” Probably not the best idea, given that Kurt’s vision is still not 100%, but it still feels like a pretty  _solid_  idea for coping.

Blaine kisses his cheek, eyes dancing with mischief in the sparkles thrown by the overhead disco ball. “Mmm. Not quite.” He grabs Kurt’s hand once more and begins to thread back through the dancing crowd, headed for the stairs. “You’ll see."


	14. Junction

“Where to?” asks the pretty cabbie with the spiky dark hair and the leather jacket, a smile curving the red bow of her lips as she takes in the two men who have tumbled into the back of her taxi - Adam knows what they have to look like, all sweat and debauchery and freely roaming hands. He resolves to tip her very well, though the appreciation in her dark almond eyes makes him wonder if the real bonus to her mind isn’t money at all.

“My place,” Sebastian growls, and it’s not a question. Nor is it a point Adam is going to fight. He wants Sebastian _now_ , Sebastian certainly seems to want _him_ if the aggressive way he’s got his hand sliding up along Adam’s bare ribs is any indication, and Sebastian’s apartment is a much shorter cab ride away. He nods his agreement and does his level best to make Sebastian’s job of giving his address very _very_ difficult.

The cab driver winks, touching a kiss to her black nailed fingertip and pressing it to the scuffed Plexiglas barrier that separated driver from fare. "Don't get anything on the seats," she cautions before turning back around and pulling out into Manhattan traffic with a lurch that sends Sebastian sprawling out over Adam’s very receptive and delighted body.

Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to bring Sebastian to the brink and pull back over and over again, holding him tight and close while Adam rolls his hips up, undulating against the rock hard erection that has to be painful by now, he’s been teasing Sebastian for so long. _How long are you going to hold out on being polite, darling?_ he’d whispered on the dance floor while his hand slipped down inside Sebastian’s jeans and stroked through the briefs at Sebastian’s cock, fingers gentle but nimble as he massaged.

Of course Adam loves Kurt and Blaine and enjoys spending time with them, but a night club isn’t really conducive to long conversations and the cheerful exchange of gossip. It is much more conducive to tormenting one’s lover, especially if said lover had been left a bit high and dry from a sadly shortened session of shower fun earlier in the evening.

Poor Sebastian. Still, Adam has every intention of making up for it.

“Hope I get you again the next time you guys need a ride,” the cabbie calls after them as they scramble out of her taxi and try their level best to get into the building and upstairs without allowing more than a hairsbreadth of space between their bodies. They don't succeed, but oh, what fun it is to try.

“That’s not my pocket,” Sebastian babbles out when Adam pins him against his apartment door and slides a hand down the front of his jeans yet again. “My keys, they’re in, they’re...fucking hell...”

“I know where your keys are.” It’s not easy, but Adam manages to keep his voice calm, despite the fact that his pulse is racing and he wants to be inside, laid out, naked and desperate, _right now_. It’s more fun to keep teasing Sebastian, to watch him come to pieces, and that’s all that keeps Adam from just breaking down the door.

His palm rests along the length of Sebastian’s cock, fingers cupped just under the taut, heavy hang of Sebastian’s balls. Slow, ever so slow and careful, he presses the heel of his hand against the heat and firmness, pulling up just a little, flexing his fingers, keeping the friction gentle yet relentless. “Come on, babe,” he whispers against Sebastian’s temple, brushing a kiss across the fevered skin, coming away with the faint taste of sweat and salt on his lips. “It’s better when I make you wait, isn’t it?”

Fingers scrabble across the wood of the door as Sebastian seeks any purchase to keep himself upright, desperate little mewling groans spilling from his lips while he pushes his pelvis forward, up, seeking and needy. “Please...”

“Aw, you said the magic word. All right.” Adam pulls his hand back and flips Sebastian so that his chest is pressed against the door and Adam is right up against his back, hands rummaging in pockets for the wayward keys and, yes, all right, maybe keeping up the playful groping through the fabric.

When they stumble through the door, Adam barely remembers to kick it shut behind him before tackling his lover down to the carpet and trying to pull off both their shoes at once. His need is beginning to outstrip his control, his libido always willing to respond with gusto at every pant and groan and plea that Sebastian lets slip. For all that his demeanor in public is that of a strangely appealing cocky jerk, in the bedroom Sebastian allows himself to give in to need. He lets Adam pull him apart and if there is one thing Adam finds absolutely irresistible it is that submission, that willingness to lose himself that only happens here, only happens with Adam.

It is a gift. Adam is aware of this. It is not one he understands or even feels ready to ask why he is the lucky recipient of, but he is aware and he holds it close, and he pours everything he has into meeting that need.

By now Sebastian’s shirt is clumped at his elbows, exposing long expanses of tanned skin to Adam’s lips and tongue as he straddles one clenched-tight thigh and whips his own shirts out from where they've been looped through his belt for an hour or more. One swift motion sends them flying across the room with a wall-rattling thump and frees Adam up to pay full attention to the straining body beneath him.

"Wait -" Sebastian wriggles free of his shirt and scrabbles a hand up to the end table, flopping and slapping around amongst the detritus there until he comes away with a remote control. "Thin walls - remember -"

A click of a button and Justin Timberlake's voice begins to spin out of the speakers of Sebastian's stereo system. _Hey little mama, ain't gotta ask me if I want to..._

Adam muffles a guffaw against Sebastian's chest. "Oh my god, why don't you just give in to the full cliche and have Barry White playing?"

"Shut up and fuck me _now_ ," comes the impatient, jagged-edge reply, accompanied by an insistent pelvic grind. "Judge later."

Never one to disappoint, and not inclined at this juncture to argue, Adam shoves Sebastian back down into the carpet and lays himself out flat all along every inch of that long, lanky body that he can reach, letting his fingers roam and tickle and twist into smooth skin and pebbled nipple. Every harsh groan that climbs up out of Sebastian’s throat gets swallowed down like fine brandy, just as delicious and three times as intoxicating.

_Just a little longer_ , Adam bargains with himself, with the side that is desperate to strip Sebastian naked putting up a fierce argument against his sheer love of the tease. _Just a -_

Sebastian's phone carols out "Pocketful of Sunshine" at the same time that Adam's begins to announce that you can’t fool the children of the revolution. Adam lets his head drop down into the crook of Sebastian’s neck. “Oh, damn it,” he groans into the soft skin.

"Kurt?" Sebastian guesses, his voice tight with strain.

Adam nods, leaning back up to trace the tip of his tongue up along Sebastian's throat. Satisfaction fills him to see goosebumps stipple across the lightly tanned skin, to feel a shiver spread under the surface of it. "And yours is Blaine, I presume. Brats. Shall we ignore them?"

Funny, Sebastian seems to be having trouble speaking as Adam rocks his hips downward, rolls back, rocks down again. His eyes flutter shut as his mouth works, soundless and desperate, until at last - "They'll just keep calling," he gets out, the words sounding as if they'd had to fight a battle to get free. “It’ll really fucking kill the mood. Which I _think_ is the plan.”

Adam considers while their phones go to voicemail, but nothing’s coming to mind. Perhaps multitasking will help. He slides his hands around and down Sebastian's back, wriggling past the jeans, past the waistband of the briefs, until his hands are covering the tight warmth of Sebastian's ass, cupping and kneading and pulling their bodies even closer together. "So. What shall we do with them?"

Sebastian doesn’t answer. With a clear slow reluctance he pulls one hand away from its grip on Adam’s waist and wedges it down into his jeans pocket just as both phones go off again. It takes him a minute of wriggling to get his out and thumb it on to speakerphone. “You’re an asshole.”

Blaine’s familiar throaty chuckle peals out of the speaker, wound in and around Kurt’s delighted, barked out _HA_! “Having a nice time, boys?”

“We _were_ ,” Adam replies, making sure to sharpen his voice to a point. Which does nothing but make his friends cackle harder.

“Is that Justin Timberlake?” Kurt is still snickering, evidently quite pleased with himself. “You’re usually a little more subtle, at least, 'Bastian.”

“Can we stop judging my musical taste? Jesus Christ.” With a roll of his eyes, Sebastian fumbles around for the remote again and points it at the stereo. In another moment Justin Timberlake fades into Ellie Goulding. “Better?”

“I didn’t _really_ mind,” Adam whispers into Sebastian’s ear before directing his attention back to the phone. “What do you two miserable excuses for friends want?”

He can actually picture Kurt pouting when he speaks up again. “We’re miserable? _You_ two ran off to fuck, we barely got to spend any time together. I’m just continuing on with our little social evening.”

Sebastian scoffs. “You two ran off to make out in a corner, I don’t want to hear it.”

“We weren’t making out - “ But Blaine’s earnest attempt at explanation is shut down by a quick hiss from Kurt, and isn’t that interesting? Because Adam would very much like to know what was going on in that alcove. It hadn’t looked like making out to him either, and knowing Kurt the way he did...well.

They’d have to have coffee later that week. _But now is for making this one here go all to pieces_ , Adam reminds himself, pushing himself up to look down at the gorgeous man beneath him and tracing his fingers along prominent collarbones, down well formed pectoral muscles.

It makes Sebastian shiver, raises those goosebumps again. He has to swallow hard before he opens his mouth to continue this bizarre four way conversation. “So. You assholes going to stick around?” Sebastian asks, challenge stout and proud in his voice. Adam blinks and leans down to whisper in his ear.

“What are you doing?”

With an easy flip, Sebastian positions the phone right by his head. “They’re here - more or less - we’re busy, and I dunno, I kind of want to find out if Blaine’s still into that group sex kink he discovered in college.”

"Excuse you," Blaine protests with a sputter as Kurt howls out in laughter.

"Excuse nothing," The volley back is accompanied by Sebastian's patented, singular snort of affectionate contempt as he returns his hands to Adam’s hips and grinds his pelvis upward. "Babe, did you know about their threesome experiment back in the day?"

"Know about it? I was a willing guinea pig." It had been fun, too. "Wait, are you saying..."

Sebastian's laughter shakes both their bodies. "Oh, Jesus. You two are thirsty fuckers, aren't you? And I know there was at least one other one."

Curiouser and curiouser. Adam cocks an eyebrow down at Sebastian and grins. "Oh, really?"

"Mmm-hmm. They had a scheduling conflict one particularly um... _busy_...night. Forgot to cancel me. I ran into Blondie outside of their apartment building before they could text me."

"Blondie?"

Kurt clears his throat. "No comment."

"That buddy of Blaine’s from high sch - ah, oh, _fuck_." Goodness, but Sebastian has sensitive nipples. Adam feels his grin grow wider as he toys with one of them and watches his lover bite down on his lower lip so hard Adam can see the flesh turn white.

"This is a _fascinating_ conversation," he drawls, applying a gentle twist that makes Sebastian squirm and groan. "But we're getting off topic. I had plans before this darling boy here decided to answer the phone, and I'm getting back to them. As he said, you're welcome to stay on the line, of course..."

“I don’t kn - ooh. Ah...Blaine, what are you -” Kurt’s voice wobbles, shudders, and at last terminates in a sharp intake of breath. “Fuck.”

“That’s our plan at least,” Adam mumbles as he dips his head back down to occupy Sebastian with a kiss as he slowly undoes every button on Sebastian’s button-fly jeans. “You do what you want.”

Judging by the stream of run-together curses spilling out of the phone, Blaine is doing what Blaine does best, which is taking Kurt apart using nothing more than his mouth. Adam almost wishes they were in the same room right now. Watching Kurt’s face go slack with pleasure as Blaine took him into his mouth and Adam fucked Blaine slow and leisurely from behind...it’s one of Adam’s favorite memories of their time together.

_Focus_ , he instructs himself. This is the here and now and for all that he loves Blaine and Kurt, his time with Sebastian is studded with more and brighter memories that Adam hopes to keep stacking one on another until the tower stretches into the sky. With care, but not too much, he yanks both jeans and boxers down Sebastian’s long legs in as near to one motion as he can manage and shoves them aside. “I can’t really wait anymore,” he confesses, low and rough.

“Thank fuck,” is the only response he receives as Sebastian returns the jeans favor and they’re both utterly, gloriously naked and wrapped as close together as they can get while Kurt’s soft moans and the wet sound of a skilled mouth on an eager cock drifts out of the phone speakers. Ellie Goulding has long ago faded into Florence and the Machine into Bruno Mars into Flight Facility.

_Why can't you want me like the other boys do?_

_They stare at me while I stare at you...why can't I keep you safe as my own?_

Adam turns Sebastian over as the bass drops, letting his erection slip into the crevice between Sebastian’s cheeks and lay there, cradled and warm and straining for _more_. “Do you need...” he begins, knowing he doesn’t have to finish the sentence and hoping that the answer is _no_.

“No,” Sebastian breathes, flooding Adam’s entire body with sweet relief. “Now, ple...now, Adam. Come on. Fuck me.”

Two hours and then some of teasing and perpetual cockstands, it’s no wonder Sebastian is almost needy enough to beg again. There’s a fleeting urge to see if Adam can push it all the way, to get another broken, desperate _please_ that's so very sweet, but no, he meant it, he can’t wait anymore either.

Condom retrieved from his pocket, lube from the end table, and it’s right at the end of Adam’s ability to maintain control when he finally, carefully eases into Sebastian a snug millimeter at a time. He doesn’t even care when he lets go enough to moan, lets his eyelids droop down as he savors the slow push.

He can see just through his eyelashes that Sebastian has laid his head down on the floor, cheek pillowed into the carpet, eyes tight shut, mouth open in a silent long breath of satisfaction. Under Adam’s fingertips, he can feel the strain as Sebastian fights not to fuck himself back all the way down onto Adam’s cock, the slight tremble of muscles held tight in restraint shivering in Adam’s grip. He understands, oh, how he understands because as he listens to Kurt’s whimpers and the delicious obscene sucking slide of Blaine’s mouth, as Adam sinks into Sebastian - oh, all he wants to do is lose himself in it, in the carnal sensual bliss, the overwhelming sensation of being enveloped in sex.

“Touch yourself, baby.” Kurt’s voice is a breathy command to Blaine, and it draws a groan out of Sebastian.

Adam wonders what memory his lover is having of his own tryst with their friends, what images are drifting behind those closed eyelids.

He lets his hips rock forward and push himself inside the last snug inch and revels in it for just a short moment, just a little, just enough to enjoy knowing he’s as close as he can be to any other human being and how much he likes that it’s Sebastian.

“I won’t last,” he whispers, but he’s going to try, shakes with the effort of keeping his motions to the slowest lazy roll of his hips that he can manage.

“Don’t try." One green eye opens and rolls back to fix on Adam. “There’s always time to do it again…not like we ever stop at one..."

Fuck, but dirty sexpot Sebastian is one of Adam’s favorite Sebastians.

"Blaine, Blaine, Blaine," Kurt is chanting, a desperate mantra carried on thready breaths. Adam lets it fill his ears, wound in and around Blaine's humming whimpers and the stretched out groans Sebastian is failing so utterly to keep behind his tight clenched teeth as Adam strokes in and out, rolls his hips, pauses to catch himself.

Adam reaches down to find Sebastian so hard, so warm to the touch and the tip of his cock already slick and wet. He lets his thumb slide over the pre-come as he begins to stroke, struggling to keep time with his own stuttering thrusts. He wants to speak, to spill enticements into his lover's ear, to whisper and moan and encourage and beg him to come but it's all Adam can do now just to remember to breathe.

Kurt goes over first, voice tumbling out of the phone speaker in an incoherent stream, and Adam can just about pull up the memory of what his face looks like when he's spilling down Blaine's throat, long pale fingers knotted tight through dark curls, blue eyes tight shut in ecstatic reverie and lips parted to let out gasps like prayers.

Sebastian, then, eyes springing wide open as his fingers spread out tight and tense over the carpet before curling back into fists so tight Adam will have to kiss away the red crescents Sebastian's fingernails will leave in his palm.

When Blaine comes, it sounds like he muffles his shout into Kurt's thigh, or maybe Kurt's mouth, if Kurt slipped down to help Blaine with a gentle hand and to take the taste of himself back over his own tongue as he does so often like to do.

Adan's climax feels like he's taken the energy of everyone else's in for his own, collected it until it warms his skin and tightens his muscles, floods every inch of vein and artery with electricity for one second before it flares away and sends him gasping and sprawling out over Sebastian, carrying them both to the floor in a tangle of warm, loose limbs and short breaths.

For a moment as long as it is short, Adam is blind and deaf to everything, knowing only the feel of Sebastian's breath expanding his ribcage under Adam's chest. Panic gives way to contentment as he lets the familiar-as-his-own-skin sensation guide him back to reality.

When he drifts back to earth, the playlist on Sebastian's stereo has mellowed out even further, melancholy lyrics spinning out of the speakers on a voice like an amaretto sour.

_When the floor is more familiar than the ceiling_

_I will break in late at night, shake up how you're feeling..._

_Emeli Sande_ , he thinks, remembering the day that Sabrina had dragged him to her apartment to listen to the entire CD. He remembers falling in love with the dreamy sweet smoke of Emeli’s voice, letting it wash through him and linger in his memory for days.

He had no idea Sebastian had even heard of Emeli Sande...

_I’ll never stop breaking the law for you_

_I’ll never stop helping to pull you through..._

Adam listens, and Adam freezes.

This is the moment he knows, lets himself understand that knowledge. Adam loves Sebastian, this man underneath him and in his hands, loves his overtly sexual nature, his shy pleasured disbelief at little kindnesses, the feel of his skin under Adam's palms, the way he falls into concentrating so hard on work tasks that he has to be physically pulled back into the world, his boundless appetite for learning things perfectly, the little frown crease between his brows, his eyes, ass, hands, hair, and guarded heart. Adam loves how the energy of movement crackles off of Sebastian even when he's sitting still, how his mood is so easily inscribed in every expression, and Adam even loves the dark pool of anger he knows simmers just under the surface of it all that he's not allowed to touch.

In this moment, open and pliant in body and mind, Adam can't push any of that away anymore.

And exactly because he knows all of this, he knows he can say nothing about it at all. The words sit heavy on his tongue like a lead weight and taste like he's holding a battery in his mouth.

He doesn't want to pull back, to disengage completely, so he lays there on Sebastian's back, cock softening, breath slowing, his cheek pressed to Sebastian's skin. He lets one hand trail down Sebastian's arm, over bicep and elbow and forearm until he can curve the palm of his hand around the back of Sebastian's and let their fingers intertwine as they catch their breath together.

The sound of a deeply heaved sigh comes from Sebastian's phone, catching them both unawares and making them laugh. "So, the meddling lovebirds live," Adam chuckles, still not willing to move.

"No thanks to you," Kurt's voice gasps out. "Jesus, you _both_ know how competitive Blaine gets. I thought he was going to suck my brain out through my dick."

"Then maybe next time you'll think twice before you interfere," Sebastian retorts, propping himself up on his elbows. "Nobody forced you to call. Although come to think of it, nobody forced you to let Blaine blow you either."

Blaine's familiar chuckle barks out of the speaker. "There has never in documented history been a time when Kurt Hummel turned down one of my blowjobs."

The mood is congenial now, the afterglow thoroughly dissipated. Adam pulls out and away with care, wrapping the condom up in a tissue he digs out of the pocket of his jeans. Setting it aside for proper disposal later, he settles back down into his position laying along the length of Sebastian's body, resting his chin on the arms he has folded across Sebastian's shoulders as he listens to his friends banter with his lover.

It's comfortable, all of it in every possible way, and maybe there's a tiny little alarm going off in the back of his head, maybe there's a little voice telling him he's in too deep, but for now all Adam wants is to soak up all of the comfort and happiness he can pull out of this strange something-like-a-relationship-but-not, soak it up and hide it away for the harsh winter he worries must surely be coming.


	15. Interlude - A Conversation, Already In Progress

The open kitchen window lets in the smell of exhaust, of food carts, and the cacophony of New York City traffic of both the vehicular and pedestrian variety. A chair creaks with the shifting of the body occupying it. There is a long, deep, hesitant breath. "Do you love him?"

The scraping ring of a teaspoon stirring sugar into Lapsang Souchong sings out into the air as the question is considered. It was more direct than expected, throws things off. "I...maybe."

"Damn it. Maybe is as good as a yes with you." A long sip of nonfat soy latte. Pause. Sigh. "You know this is a bad idea."

When the teaspoon clinks down onto the table, it’s accompanied by an irritable huff. "You're always saying you want me to meet someone! Someone real. Someone for whom I could have feelings."

"I do want that for you! You're one of my best friends. I just..." Fingers drum on the table's surface for a long moment. "I...I just wanted it to be someone who could return those feelings."

"And what if I think he could?"

"In this lifetime?"

Sharp intake of breath, a voice edged with warning. "That's not terribly fair of you."

"I love you both. I've  _known_ him longer.” The tone is protesting, worried, with the thinnest ribbon of fright threaded through it. “I know how he's  _always_  been. You do casual relationships. He does casual sex. The difference is feelings -"

"He has feelings. Not ones he reveals easily, but I know they exist." Tea is sipped, a ceramic mug is returned to the table not with a gentle clack, but a smack that nearly fractures its bottom. "I am willing to put in the time to let him talk about them when he’s ready. You'll simply have to trust me. And, frankly, him. We  _are_  both adults."

Long, long,  _long_  silence. "I don't want you to get hurt. You don’t know what he’s like when he panics, the things he can say -"

A sleeve rustles against the tabletop as a hand is extended across to link fingers with an affectionate squeeze. "I appreciate your concern more than I can tell you."

"But you're going to do this anyway."

"I'm going to do this anyway."


	16. A Thousand Words

 

Getting out to this part of Brooklyn is still second nature, even if Sebastian hasn’t made the trip in many, many months.

 

Too many months.

 

Nothing has changed, though, especially not the store he’s standing in front of - the door is still dusty on the outside, the glass storefront still crammed with flyers and photos in varying stages of fading and curling. The display equipment that’s visible is the latest, though, top of the line as anything this shop carries would absolutely be. But it’s all on the same stands and scrupulously dusted glass shelves, separated from his itching fingers by the same bulletproof glass and a decades-old line of forbidding iron bars.

 

Before his life went upside down and sideways, Sebastian used to come out here all the time. At least once a week, for years, since his first days visiting New York. This shop and all it represents was his one constant, and then...then it wasn’t.

  
Things should never have gotten to that point. He is angry that he let them, that he allowed that absence to occur, but also grateful that he’s finally woken back up and allowed his feet to carry him back to this doorstep.

  
And when he finally moves and walks through the shop door, the smell of film developer and glossy paper fills his nostrils and brings him home.

  
Connor is behind the counter helping a customer choose a new lens when the bell on the door - and that, too, is the same string of cheap but loud jinglebells as ever, maybe with a few more bits of gold paint flaked off - catches his attention, and it’s a little gratifying to Sebastian when Connor realizes who he’s seeing and his eyes get wide and his smile even wider.

 

Before Sebastian can take another uncertain step inside, Connor’s in front of him and has him wrapped in a huge, warm hug. “Holy shit. Sebastian.”

 

“Yeah…” Monaghan’s Film and Video had been his second home almost from the first day he set foot in New York, led by directions and a recommendation from an online buddy. And it hadn’t taken long for his business relationship with Connor to evolve into a kind of brotherhood, past friendship and into something like what he thought families could be.

 

And he’d turned his back on it, let himself get lost. He hasn’t so much as sent a text message to Connor in far too long, let alone set foot in the store. Much like all of Sebastian’s friends, Connor had fallen by the wayside when the whole... _Greg_...thing was going on. Just thinking about it makes Sebastian’s face flood with the dull burn of guilt.

 

He’d almost ruined so many things.

 

“You okay?” Connor’s face is a study in concern when he pulls back, and Sebastian has to blink back a suspicious stinging in his eyes at the sight of it. He’s still getting re-accustomed to being someone people give a damn about, and he’d never been all that used to it in the first place.

 

Deep, steady breaths and Connor’s hands on his shoulders help bring him back to center and to his reason for being here in the first place. Under Adam’s care, Sebastian is readjusting to a great many things he’d turned his back on, refilling the chinks and cracks in his soul that the mess with Greg had left behind.

 

Today his intention is to reclaim the largest part of himself that he’d torn out and set aside while Greg had been surreptitiously shredding him to pieces.

 

Sebastian tugs up the strap of the camera bag slung across his chest and grins at his old friend. “I’ve got a roll of undeveloped film and no idea if I can still shoot or not. Can I borrow your darkroom?”

 

\----------

  
He’d awoken that morning next to Adam. Nothing unusual for a Sunday.

  
But today the light was different, the way it played through the curtains in Sebastian’s bedroom and over Adam’s skin. Shadows of passing birds made temporary tattoos on Adam’s back, the skin itself seemed lit from within, warm and pale golden brown and smooth. Sebastian’s breath had caught in his throat to observe the perfect moment, to imagine it captured forever and framed on his wall.

 

For the first time in too long, the thought of a camera in his hands didn’t burn like fire.

 

He’d let the moment pass, waited until they’d kissed goodbye and parted for the day to run into his closet, to the large plastic container in the back stuffed full of carefully boxed and wrapped equipment - lenses and cameras, his priceless collection. Even the antique and toy cameras he’d kept around for fun and decoration, they were all here as well.

 

He’d packed everything to do with photography away and worked hard to forget his first and best love had ever existed.

 

The familiar weight of his Canon in his hand didn’t quite feel as much like an extension of his body as it used to, but it was good, a comfort, and it made excitement cascade down his spine and into his fingers. The next thing he'd known he was down on the sidewalk outside of his building with yesterday’s clothes on, his bag slung over his shoulder, and exhilaration propelling his feet towards the nearest subway station.

 

He'd limited himself to one roll until he could be sure he hadn't lost his touch. One roll. It had been a struggle.  _Just do two, one more roll, it's nothing_ \- but he didn't want any waste. Not film or time or anything. It had forced him to be circumspect in his choice of subjects, to select and frame a scene with extra care. Even so, it seemed like no time at all before he’d traveled all over the city and filled it up.

 

At least he knows now his fire to take pictures had only been stifled, not extinguished completely - even if the jury is still out on the results. Squinting in the dim illumination of Connor’s darkroom, Sebastian pulls the last print out of the fixer bath and holds his breath. Except for a brief period of time while his negatives dried and Connor forced him to go get lunch, he's been working alone all day, anxious to get his solitary roll of film from negative to print.

  
Never religious, Sebastian is nonetheless praying for at least a decent result to whoever will listen.

  
“How's it looking?” Connor slips through the blackout door and sets a bottle of Abita on the shelf near the drying line. “Any luck?”

  
Sebastian pegs the print up on the line with the others and takes a step back, closing his eyes. "I'm afraid to look."

  
“Talk about words I never thought I’d hear.” Eyes still clenched shut, Sebastian hears rather than sees Connor lope over to the line of drying prints, his steps shuffling and then coming to a dead stop at the far end of the darkroom.

  
The silence is brutal. And very, very long. Sebastian closes his eyes even more tightly, stuffs his fists into his pocket and tries not to claw the palms of his hands to pieces as Connor paces down the line and occasionally breaks the silence with sips from his beer bottle.

 

At last, Connor reaches the end of the line and a low whistle escapes him. “Damn.”

  
 _Shit_. “That bad?” It takes significant effort for Sebastian to pry his eyes open and face the music. “Fuck.”

 

“No, asshole. They’re fine.” Connor is shaking his head and reviewing the line of prints again. “God _damn_. I never want to hear you question your ability again.”

  
Sebastian can’t move. “What?”

  
“I mean, the subjects are pretty pedestrian, but at the same time that means they’re classic New York. And in that context, your shit is still top of the line, buddy.” When Connor turns around, he’s smiling and it’s the thing that finally makes Sebastian pull his hands back out of his pockets and relax. “I don’t think you’ve lost a thing. Of course, now you’re gonna have to test yourself. No more of these brownstones and bridges. You already knew you could do that, these are like riding a bicycle for you.”

 

“You mean it?” He knows his eyes are as wide as salad plates. “Seriously, Connor.”

 

“I don’t bullshit. Not a good business practice in my line of work.” Connor turns back to face the prints and sips at his beer again, shaking his head with what looks like it might almost be an admiring look on his face. “Naw, these are good, you gotta know that.”

  
“Well. I haven’t really looked at them yet.” He forces his feet to move forward towards the shelf where his own beer is waiting for him, still not looking at the prints, not yet. He will, just, not immediately. In fact, changing the subject seems like a good idea while he pulls himself together.

 

So he does. “So, hey, how’ve you been? How's Rayna?”

  
For a split second Connor looks surprised, and then...then he looks angry. When his eyes slide over to meet Sebastian’s, they’re narrow and dark and very, very alarming. For all that Connor is not much taller than Blaine, he’s got the stocky frame of an ex-boxer and is therefore rather frightening when he gets upset. Sebastian watches as Connor’s empty hand flexes into and out of a fist before he speaks again. “Rayna had the baby we were expecting when you disappeared. You remember that?”

 

Yes. Sebastian probably should have seen this coming. He walked himself right into it.  _Fuuuuuuuuck_.  _I am an idiot._

 

Obviously the discussion of why he’d dropped off the face of the earth couldn’t be put off forever, but he could totally do without having slingshot himself into it via the normally innocent medium of small talk. And he has nothing he can say, no excuse he can give. Not with Connor’s angry eyes pinning him in place, not with regret clogging up his throat.

  
There’s a snort before Connor pulls a long swallow off his beer and continues. “Kira’s five months old now. And you haven’t seen her. Not once. Because you didn’t answer texts or emails or phone calls...” Hurt is as sharp as a knife blade in Connor’s voice and suddenly, all over his face. “What the fuck, Sebastian? You were supposed to be her  _godfather_. You’re like my  _brother_.”

 

The thing is, this discussion was easier with Blaine and Kurt because they expected him to be an asshole. But they’ve all known each other nearly half their lives and Sebastian had pulled a lot of really gross shit on them before they finally all found their footing. They’re used to forgiving him. To having to forgive him. To not asking too many questions.

 

Not so Connor. This is the first time Connor’s ever had to deal with any direct results of Sebastian being a selfish dick. And Connor’s like a terrier, he sniffs down his quarry and latches on, digging in his heels and his teeth. He does not easily forgive, and he will not let go of something until he understands it.

 

There are quite a few reasons why Sebastian has been avoiding Monaghan's, and this is definitely one of them. Still not able to speak, Sebastian keeps his eyes on Connor as he takes several bracing swallows of his own beer. Today it tastes like sawdust.

 

Belligerence shines in Connor’s eyes when he lights back into Sebastian. “Nobody knew where you were. Nobody heard from you. You know I actually even ran into that fuckin’ jerk in Starbucks one day and asked him about you?”

  
That’s a jolt. That’s enough to dislodge Sebastian’s voice. “You mean Greg? You saw  _Greg_?”

 

“And even talked to him.” Connor’s mouth twists into a cynical smirk. “Not that he’d heard from you either. Unlike me, though, he didn't seem too concerned about it, so I'm not sorry that I guess he’s gone." Folding his arms, Connor leans on the table. "You gonna tell me what the hell happened? And do not tell me  _that_  douche is why you stopped doing photography, because I already don’t like him, if I move on to hating him it could be a physical problem." When he cracks his knuckles and grins like a wolf, it’s unnerving as hell. “For him.”

 

 _Breathe in. Breathe out._  Adam dropped the Greg questions a long time ago, Sebastian can only assume because he's decided that Sebastian will stop being evasive about it when he's ready. Connor is not Adam. He won’t be put off.

 

But that doesn't mean Sebastian is going to give direct answers. All these months later, he's still not ready to tell anyone how weak he was, how much control he'd lost over his own actions. "No, don’t...I mean, there’s no need...a lot of things went wrong."

 

"Tell me something a little less obvious." Connor snorts and doesn't let his gaze waver an inch.

 

"I got in over my head. It wasn't worth it. I'm glad it's over." This is finally not a lie, as it had been the first couple of months he'd lost himself in Adam. He wishes the mention of Greg's name wasn't still like a clutch of glass shards roiling in his stomach, but he is glad it's over. "It took me a while to get my shit back together...it still isn’t, really...I'm sorry, Connor. That's all I can tell you right now."

  
He can't, he just can't yet talk about letting himself fall so hard he gave up everything he loved. He still can't face the shuddering weakness of wrapping himself entirely in his relationship with Greg, of his obsession with making it work. He certainly can't talk about the conversation that led him to shove his collection of cameras and everything that reminded him of his lifelong love of photography deep into the back of his closet.

  
Greg had poisoned it so  _badly_.

  
Connor purses his lips and stares at Sebastian, stares hard and piercing over his beer bottle and waits. But no, Sebastian can be stubborn too. Sebastian can keep some things his own. He’d meant what he said.

 

Finally, Connor sighs and shakes his head. He doesn't look pleased, but he does look resigned. “Fine. Okay. I’ll let it go...for now.”

 

“Thank you.” Not that this means Sebastian is done walking the tightrope. He braces himself for Connor’s next line of attack.

  
It’s neither long in coming, nor subtle. “So who’s the guy that got you to pick up your camera again?”

  
 _Oh. Haha. Ha. No._ If Sebastian can’t tell Connor about why he  _stopped_  taking photos, he certainly can't tell Connor why he’s  _started_  again. He can’t talk about this morning, about the sunlight through the curtains passing over drowsy Adam's honey colored tousle of waves, mussed from sleep and the debaucheries of the night before. He can't tell Connor about the way the dark blue sheets cut and contrasted across Adam's hips, their diagonal tangle revealing only the barest hint of the curve of Adam's backside. And he's definitely not even talking to himself about how the burning desire to permanently capture the moment on film got caught in his chest and throat until he couldn't even breathe anymore.

 

Connor clears his throat and drags Sebastian's attention back to the present moment. "Hello?"

 

"Yeah, I..." Sebastian picks at a clothespin while he thinks, picks and picks until he feels a splinter slide under his nail and he winces with pain, setting it aside in favor of his drink. “Ow.”

 

“Don’t try and get out of this one,” Connor warns. “I know you. I know there’s a guy. You’re too  _happy_.” He pauses, seeming to consider. “At least this time it’s a good happy, not the weird desperate happy.”

  
“Fuck you,” Sebastian blurts, having narrowly avoided choking on the beer he’d just swallowed.

  
“No, fuck you,” Connor retorts. “Look, you can’t get away with not telling me  _anything_. You  _disappeared_ , man. We’ve known each other for a long fucking time, and you  _disappeared_. Because of that motherfucking shitstain. And okay, fine, I’ll let you get away with not telling me the whole story on that for now, but I am not going to let you disappear again, so hey.” He finishes off his beer and sets the bottle aside, stalking over to poke his finger into Sebastian’s chest. “You better tell me about the new guy, so I can figure out what the odds are of you pulling a David Blaine again.”

  
“Ow,” Sebastian says again, scowling as he rubs the new sore spot on his chest with his sore hand. “I’m not going to disappear!”

 

“Yeah? Pardon me if I’m not convinced.” Stepping back, Connor fishes in his back pocket for his wallet, rummaging through it until he pulls out a slip of a photo that he shoves into Sebastian’s face. A baby girl with creamy beige skin, dimples, a fluffy fuzz of hair and her father’s brown eyes is smiling at whoever’s taking her picture, frozen in the moment of nearly bursting into baby babbles. “I got a five month old daughter who’s never met her godfather, Mister I’m Not Gonna Disappear. Try harder.”

 

Sebastian swallows hard and dry as his gaze fixes on the small photograph and his fingers flex. “Connor, I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry, okay? I know I made a mistake. I’m admitting that. I am admitting I’m a fuck up.”

  
“You think?”

  
“Of course I think.”  _I will not get angry at him. I have earned this_. “I  _am_  a fuck up. Okay? And the thing with Greg was  _fucked_.” Sucking a deep breath down into his lungs, Sebastian decides to give a little. A very little. “But Greg is gone, and yeah, there’s a new guy. And I promise he’s not Greg. Not even a little bit.”

 

This is not enough to dissolve the skepticism from Connor’s eyes. “I’m gonna have to meet him.”

 

That’s a big one. A huge concession. Letting someone who isn’t Kurt or Blaine or one of the Sweets employees see him with Adam? Really  _see_  them together? That’s maybe putting things with Adam on a level Sebastian isn’t equipped to handle. “I’ll think about it.”

 

“Months, Sebastian,  _months_ -” Connor begins, his face turning red.

  
“I know. I know, Connor.” Panic inches its way up through Sebastian’s body from the feet up, squeezing him tight and threatening to cut off his breath and voice again. “I know, I just...please, okay, it took a lot for me to come here and face you today, knowing what a dick I have absolutely and completely been. I can’t give you everything at once, I’m almost out of what’s keeping me on my feet.” It’s pouring out now ahead of the vise grip of fear, tumbling and spilling and frantic. “I swear to God, I’m not going anywhere, and you will find out everything, but Jesus even this guy I’m seeing,  _he_  doesn’t know everything and I -”

 

“Whoa. Whoa.” This time when Connor touches Sebastian, it’s back to brotherhood, calming and centering hands on Sebastian’s arms and a worried look on his face replacing the anger. “Okay. I got it. Okay? Do what you need to in your time. I’m not going to push it. Okay?”

  
Relief closes Sebastian’s eyes again as his chest relaxes and allows breathing to resume. “I will tell you, you know. Really. When I can.”

 

“I’m gonna try real hard to believe you,” Connor tells him, gentle and worried and so reminiscent of the kindness that keeps Sebastian linked to Adam that Sebastian nearly collapses and spills everything then and there.

 

But only nearly. “I don’t deserve a friend like you,” Sebastian manages to say, opening his eyes and forcing himself to smile and keep things simple.

 

“Nope. But you’re stuck with me.” All anger and fear is gone from Connor’s eyes. He’s still worried, and Sebastian feels that guilt again at causing it and not knowing how long he’s going to have to work to make it go away, but at least the anger is gone, and the pushing is over for now.

 

Well. The emotional pushing. Sebastian barely keeps to his feet as Connor physically grabs him and shoves him over to face the line of prints. He does not manage to keep the best grip on his beer, and winces as liquid splashes out of the bottle and all down his shirt. “Connor!”

  
“I gotta finish closing up. Take a look at your work, will you?” He slaps Sebastian on the back. “A  _real_  look. Real  _close_. Because I do not want you to give up on yourself again. I want you to look at this good stuff and then get the fuck out of my shop tonight and come back next week with  _better_. Take risks again. Okay?”

 

It makes Sebastian laugh, a full on belly laugh like he doesn’t get to let out too often, and oh,  _God_  how he can never, ever let his almost-brother slip away again.

  
Or himself.

 

When Sebastian nods, Connor slaps him on the back again and lets himself back out of the darkroom, leaving Sebastian alone with the fruits of his first photographic labors in about seven months. His breath now is so deep his lungs fill with the smell of developer and stop bath and fixer and he’s dizzy for a moment…

  
...but then he stops, shakes his head, and focuses, taking the step forward that will bring him close enough to really  _see_ what he’s done.

  
The first and unavoidable impression is that Connor is correct - Sebastian’s subjects are classic New York City scenes, nothing that can't be seen in any stock photo gallery. A brownstone, plants in pots and slender trees in iron cages, the Statue of Liberty, the Verrazano Narrows bridge. Children contemplating a chalked grid on the street. Ferries in the East River. They’re all everyday moments in New York City that any photographer could have captured, that dozens if not hundreds  _had_  captured for Time Magazine and National Geographic. This was deliberate, though, selected as though Sebastian was calibrating his focus all over again. So the “pedestrian” nature of it is not surprising.

 

It’s the second look that counts, the closer one, and here Sebastian sees the touches and balances that identify all of these as  _his_ work, the captured slants of light and ripples of shadow and the one child gazing right into the camera with a solemn face - everything that marks these moments as something only he could have seen and frozen in time, and it's like looking through his own eyes.  _This_  was the purpose of his work today, to bring his own vision of everyday to life once again.

  
And he can see he’s done it.

  
He takes a long breath in all the way down to his toes and feels as though his dislocated soul has slipped back into place at last.


	17. Aperture Stop

"I can now absolutely confirm that you have not lost your touch." Shaking his head in admiration, Connor strings an 8x10 of a very pretty baby girl up along the drying line, taking a half-step back to get a better look at it. "Actually, I think the break maybe did you some good. This is the best stuff I've seen you produce."

"I'll take that with a grain of salt," Sebastian retorts, carefully washing another photo. "You're automatically biased since that's your daughter.  _And_  I'm pretty sure it's impossible to take a bad picture of Kira."

"Yeah, she got her mama's looks." Connor is besotted over his little girl, and with good reason, Sebastian thinks. Kira's skin is a perfect blend of the complexions of her parents, rich and smooth and a creamy fair tan with dimples in each cheek. She got Connor's big brown eyes and Rayna's dark curls, and is more cheerfully roly poly than any other baby Sebastian has ever met. As far as babies went, she’d even been a dream subject to photograph, with her constant smile and flirting directly with the camera. Sebastian had meant it - at least based on the single afternoon, Kira was impossible to photograph badly.

Overall, he had thoroughly enjoyed the experience of photographing the family. Connor was his usual jovial self, Rayna was as ever gracious and gently teasing, and then there was Kira. Not usually one for children, Sebastian found himself not wanting to put the baby down on the few occasions Rayna allowed anyone besides herself to hold her, enjoying her babbling and gummy smiles and even her little dimpled fingers smacking gently against his face. It's the happiest he's been with anyone other than Adam in months. He almost feels human again.

Which is good, because he hasn't seen enough of Adam in  _weeks_  and has been starting to feel less "human" and more "troll under the bridge waiting to attack unsuspecting pedestrians."

Sebastian can't decide what's worse: not being able to sleep next to Adam twice a week, or noticing that he can't sleep now that he's not sleeping next to Adam twice a week. Neither one is good, but he can't work out which one is causing the most disturbance to his peace of mind. The uncertainty makes him irritable, which doesn't help the sleeping thing. Then he's been compounding both the irritability and the lack of ability to sleep with far too much coffee consumption at the office. 

His teammate at the agency is about ready to kill him, and he suspects their assistant is going to help. He hasn't pitched a successful ad campaign in...well. All the weeks he's slept alone. Not exactly a good career move.

There is one escape: in the photography, in getting behind the viewfinder and framing a precious moment of time. His camera goes nearly everywhere with him now, and he fills multiple rolls at any hour of the day, wherever he is in the boroughs of New York. It's not all treasure - most of it is dreck, sentimental pap or blurred movements or terrible light and color balance.

But the results aren't the only thing that matters, maybe not even the biggest thing. What does matter is that every moment he's behind the lens, Sebastian is sinking deeper into his own skin, re-memorizing it, loving it, getting to know himself all over again. For those snippets of time, he's not an advertising professional or a fuck-up or someone's maybe-kind-of-let's-not-talk-about-it-boyfriend...

Once upon a time he was just Sebastian, and he thinks maybe these days he remembers who that was, sometimes.

He snaps out of his murky circular thoughts when Connor collides with his back. The tray of fixer Sebastian is laboring over is set to sloshing with the impact. "Hey!"

"Sorry!" Connor reaches around to steady the tray. "Man, your bathroom is too tiny for this. I told you we could use the darkroom at the shop."

"It’s not like you  _had_  to come along just because I’m developing prints of your kid. Besides, I told you, I have plans tonight, it's easier to just do this here instead of me having to rush back from Brooklyn after shooting all morning and developing all afternoon," Sebastian replies absently, holding up a photo of Rayna cuddling Kira to inspect it before handing it back to Connor to rinse and hang.

"Oh yeah. The boyfriend."

Sebastian freezes in the middle of grabbing the next photo. "He's not my boyfriend." That comes out sharper than he intended, almost a snap. It's one thing for him to uneasily do a mental dance around whatever it is he and Adam have. Anyone else speculating on it in any way is unacceptable, an instant splash of acid on raw skin. He even physically flinches away from Connor, setting the trays of chemicals sloshing again. 

Anyone else would take the reaction as a warning, but Connor's responding snort is just as sharp as Sebastian's words, and worse, is loaded with sarcasm. "Okay, sure."

"He's not."  _I don't need you making it more complicated for me._ When he bangs the fixer tub a little harder than is strictly necessary to get bubbles off the print, Connor's low chuckle is infuriating. Sebastian grits his teeth and hands the photo off. "We see each other."

But Connor is shrewd, as always, and raises an eyebrow as he accepts the print.  "You see anyone else, though?"

"Haven't found anyone else worth seeing. I don't have a lot of time, I get to be particular." It's not a lie, per se. He doesn't need to mention that he hasn’t even bothered to try looking for anyone else. Certainly it can be left unsaid that the fact he doesn’t really want to is deeply unsettling, a warning beacon he chooses to ignore but cannot completely shut out.

"And you  _like_  him." Connor's voice is teasing, sly while he rinses the print.

"Are we twelve?" Sebastian has had to put up with Connor's playground teasing since their reconciliation. He loves his friend, but it's getting a little tiresome. "Yes, I like him. Of course I like him. I don't take people I don't like out for birthday dinners."

 _I wish we didn't have to go_ out _, though. I haven't seen him in so long. I'm glad he got that play gig but..._

"You..." Connor snorts out a disgusting noise that sounds like some unholy mating of a cough and a laugh. It shakes Sebastian out of his fretful, longing thoughts. "You don't take  _anyone_  out to birthday dinner."

"I took you out for your birthday," Sebastian shoots back, turning around to lean carefully back on the rickety wet table they’ve wedged partway into his shower. He's bothered by Connor's teasing, bothered by how much he misses Adam, bothered that he's slept alone for weeks. Being bothered makes him stubborn, more apt to try and prove points best left alone. "You've taken me out for mine."

Again the cloggy snorty laugh/cough. "Someone's defensive. You don't sleep with me, and neither one of those was dinner. Unless we really are counting Guinness as food."

Sebastian feels his knuckles tighten around the edge of the wet table. "We're also celebrating his getting a part in an off-Broadway play. Better?"

"Nope, but I'm gonna drop the subject because I know you, and this bathroom is too itty-bitty for me to dodge you trying to drown me on the wet table." Connor looks back over his shoulder with a grin. "Oh, hey. Was that the last shot?"

 _Thank god_. "For now. Even pinning back to back, we only have room on that line for ten prints to dry. I’ll do the rest tomorrow." Sebastian snaps off the rubber gloves that protected his hands from the chemicals and tosses them down on the toilet tank. "Let's get out of here. It's got to be getting late and I'm feeling claustrophobic. I want to get a little air for a minute before I break down the wet table." He sniffs at his shirt. "Ugh. I stink."

"Yeah, it'd be a shame if you couldn't clean yourself up before your big date," Connor chuckles, stripping off his own gloves and goggles. "Hang on. Let me get past you so I can see those first photos again. I think Rayna's really gonna like them -"

"It's not a date, damn it." The rubber strap of Sebastian's goggles snags in his hair and it hurts, which does not exactly improve his mood at Connor's jibing. Nor does Connor's attempt to push around to get to the far end of the photo line. "Hey, Monaghan, watch it -!"

Too late. Connor's effort to squirm between the wet table and Sebastian nearly upends the entire fragile operation, sending fixer sloshing up the entire front of his shirt and even tagging Sebastian with a few splashes. "Aw, damn."

Given the knife edge of irritability on which he’s balancing, Sebastian's feelings run a little stronger than  _damn_. "If you just poured hazardous chemicals down my shower drain, I actually am going to drown you in what’s left of them."

"Relax. It was just the fixer and nothing much got down the drain. It got all over you and me." With a mournful sigh, Connor looks down the front of his completely soaked Clash t-shirt. "Man. I can't replace this."

Pulling his Dalton Varsity Lacrosse shirt off, Sebastian can just see in the dim light that the fixer is leaving little dots of discoloration on the back, mostly on the faded red vinyl of his number. "Good thing I've got about ten of these and they're all falling to pieces anyway. Why would you wear a shirt you can't replace to develop photos in? You know better."

"Wasn't thinking." Connor's face is gloomy as they pull aside the blackout curtains so they can get out of the bathroom. "This blows."

Sebastian sighs when they emerge into the light of the living room and the extent of the damage becomes clear. Connor's shirt really is ruined entirely, Sebastian’s definitely less so. He tosses it into the laundry basket, grateful that he got away mostly unscathed. Even if the Dalton shirt is kind of ancient, he's got a nostalgic soft spot for it. "Get that into a vinegar bath in the kitchen sink. Maybe we can at least get the smell out before you go home with it. I think you're stuck using it as a developing shirt forever, though."

"I need to borrow something to get home in," Connor grumbles, tugging at his hem. "I can't take the subway half naked."

"We live in New York, people do it all the time," Sebastian cracks.  _Serve you right if you did have to make that trip, for being such a bull in a china shop in my darkroom. And for picking on me about Adam._  "Besides, any shirt I loan you is going to be too tight across the chest and it'll hang to your knees." He pauses. "Plus you'll probably just wear it to develop photos in and then  _I'm_  out a shirt."

"Gimme one of those school shirts then. Have a heart. I'll bring it back intact, swear to god. And even if it goes to my feet, it won't be covered in  _chemicals_." Connor plucks the wet shirt away from his chest with a frown before finally just pulling it off. "Come on."

"Fine, I'll see what I can find." There's a knock at the door as Sebastian disappears into his bedroom to search for any clean t-shirt that might have a hope in hell of fitting Connor. And quickly - he’s beyond ready to clean himself up and see Adam. The faster he can get Connor out, the better. "Can you get that while I'm looking? Probably just kids trying to sell magazines."

"No problem." Connor’s footsteps plod across the living room to the apartment door.

Spotting his phone in the charging dock on the dresser, Sebastian picks it up and checks it. Shock rockets through him to notice first, the time - it's late. Very late. Much later than he’d thought - very close to  _too_  late. They hadn't realized how long they were taking with the photos.

Second thing noticed is the four missed calls and string of texts from Adam.

Adam, whose final message indicates that he's standing outside the door. The door that Connor is answering. Shirtless Connor. Whom Adam knows nothing about because Sebastian hasn’t gotten around to telling him about the whole photography thing yet.

 _Well, fuck,_ Sebastian thinks in horror as the reality begins to sink in with an agonizing slowness.  _Please let it be the magazine kids?_


	18. Depth of Field

_Message To Sebastian: Darling, don't tell me you've forgotten our dinner plans._

Adam thumbs the message to sent and resumes plucking at the string of the bakery box that sits on the hallway floor next to him. It's a marvel, this turn of events - he's usually the tardy one, and Sebastian quite scrupulous about punctuality.  _And yet here we are_ , Adam considers with a rueful grin as the clock on his phone ticks into a half-hour past their scheduled meeting time and he's still stuck outside Sebastian's apartment door.  _First time for everything, I suppose._

But did it have to be tonight? It's Adam's birthday and besides, he and Sebastian haven't been able to have a proper stretch of time together in almost a month. Saturday mornings at the bakery are nice, but there are always other people around and it's hectic more often than not, plus the hours get cut short when Adam has to run off to rehearsals. They snatch the time to themselves anyway, of course, no sense wasting it. It just doesn't make up for the fact that their twice a week dinner and sleepover fun times are on hold until  _Earnest_ finishes its run in two months.

Adam is grateful and delighted that he'd gotten the part he wanted so badly, of course he is, but it does make him a little grumpy that it has cut into his social life exactly as much as he'd expected and then some. Only this week has the director begun to allow them another night off so that the tech crew can start really putting the sets together on stage.

On the other hand, maybe it's good that he's been too busy to see Sebastian - as tired as he is running Sweets and working in an off-Broadway production, Adam lives in a mild state of fear that he's going to fall down and do something stupid like confess his feelings.

Which would be, he thinks, a touch problematic if not outright disastrous.

He checks his phone again. No messages. It's moving steadily on towards eight, and their reservations are at eight-thirty. Where  _is_ Sebastian?

Adam doesn't even really want to go out to dinner. The celebration was all Sebastian's idea. To Adam's mind, a perfect celebration for his birthday and success would be to order in dumplings from the Chinese place around the corner and then go directly to bed with the man he loves after they eat. Or before. He's not picky.

The bakery box string makes dull music under his absently plucking fingers. Love. He hadn't been looking for it when he picked up Sebastian, but then he supposes everyone says that's when it happens. And despite what confident bravado he'd displayed to Kurt that one morning after their little phone orgy, Adam is scared really quite shitless about his feelings and everything they mean.

All he'd wanted that first January night was to make Sebastian feel good, and if he had a bit of fun with it, well, that was just a bit extra, wasn't it? But that's all it was supposed to be. Nice fun for both of them. 'Nice fun' being basically Adam's easy-going philosophy of life. Where does falling in love with a very cute but admittedly tightly wound and awfully skittish advertising professional fit in with that?

 _Never mind that I like them high-strung_. Not the point. There's high-strung and then there's high-strung-and-shut-tight, which is Sebastian's very own, somewhat unique category. He reveals nothing without great care and deliberation - Adam doesn't even know his parents' names! He's in love with someone so closed-off that he doesn't answer personal questions. What sort of sense does that make?

Adam doesn't even think about how it's been six months and Sebastian never has told him anything about what happened with  _that_  guy. He can feel it there, always simmering under the surface, the anger that has been there since that first night. And to be fair, maybe it's always been there, maybe Sebastian just  _lives_ a little angry all the time (because how would Adam know, he can barely get the man to admit to a preferred pizza topping), but Adam thinks...not.

Adam has nothing against love, nothing at all. But he feels he has the right to question the sanity of his mind and heart for throwing in their lot with this unlikely and frankly volatile candidate.

No message,  _still._ He lets out a sigh and sends another one.

_Message To Sebastian: Helloooooo?_

Oh, it's not fair to say Sebastian's completely closed off. He's just slow to allow layers of himself to be revealed. Blaine and Kurt have indicated that it's always been this way - although they admit that now it  _is_ a little more difficult, the layers a bit more prickly. "Most people would say he's an onion," Kurt had mused one day at rehearsal. "I've always said it's more like a pineapple. A sea urchin. A hedgehog. No, wait, a cactus -"

"I get it," Adam had growled back, apparently so alarming Kurt that he'd dropped the entire subject of Sebastian for the rest of the day.

_Message To Sebastian: You're really quite late, you know._

But this time as soon as he hits send, Adam hears Sebastian's voice, muffled through the door but clearly annoyed. Scooping up the bakery box, he scrambles to his feet with a smile on his face and a hand raised to knock at the door for a third time -

\- that's when he hears a second male voice, unfamiliar to him.

Adam freezes with his hand up, mind racing to make sense of this development. He knows it's not Kurt or Blaine, because they're spending their day together -  _Earnest_ has kept Kurt just as busy as Adam, and just as annoyed at the curbing of his personal life. Furthermore, the voice, even muffled, is too low to be either of them.

So, two options: one, it's a friend that Adam hasn't met. Logical enough; Adam hasn't met  _any_ of Sebastian's friends outside of the two he happened to also already know. Sebastian hasn't ever mentioned having other friends, but of course he must. Maybe this is one of his old friends from school.

Or two: Sebastian is seeing someone else.

That is not the most comfortable of notions. Adam's stomach curls up into a tight knot while he stands in front of the door listening to a conversation he can't make out.

It would be fair for Sebastian to see other people, it would. They're both free to. They aren't dating, haven't ever declared exclusivity. Adam's feelings, unconfessed as they are, don't change that fact.

He wouldn't  _like_ it, but it would be fair, and he would figure out how to deal with it.

He'd just sort of thought that if it did come down to that kind of thing that they'd discuss it first? That would be polite, the civilized sort of thing to do with the rather informal arrangement they have. Adam wouldn't blame Sebastian for seeing someone else, given how limited their time together has been lately. He just...would have liked to discuss it.

Also, for the record, he still doesn't like the idea of it at all. Fair or not. Especially not on his  _birthday._

He pulls in a deep breath in a vain effort to uncoil the knot in his stomach. There's not much sense in standing out here working himself up for something he knows nothing about. It's unnecessary anxiety and thinking this way is insulting to Sebastian, it gives him no credit for decency whatsoever. Drawing back his shoulders, Adam forces himself to knock on the door.

"No problem," he hears after a moment, and it's the second voice calling out, crystal clear but just as unfamiliar as it was before. When the door swings open, the short, stocky man with the dark hair and bicep tattoo and no shirt is unfamiliar as well, and the knot in Adam's stomach melts down into a steaming hot lump of jealous hurt.

The string of the bakery box bites into his fingers when he clenches them into a fist. The sting is enough to keep Adam alert and in control of himself. Only just, but it's enough. He lets the hurt tilt his chin into the air and lift an eyebrow. "Hello."

"Hiya." Shirtless Guy's smile is much too cheerful and casual for Adam's liking. "Are you early?"

 _Deep breaths._ "As it happens, I  _was_ early, but I've been out in the hallway waiting for my dinner companion for nearly an hour."

"Yeah, he's in here. Come on in." And the guy stands back from the door, waving Adam inside like he  _lives_ there or something and  _Adam's_ the guest and this is not doing Adam's emotional state any favors at all.

"I don't think I know you," he begins, willing himself to stay very, very calm and to remember what he'd told himself just a few moments ago.

But a rousing clatter interrupts Shirtless Guy just as he opens his mouth to reply. "Not what you think!" Sebastian yelps as he pelts out of his bedroom, also shirtless and looking panicked as he hurls a wadded up ball of fabric at the stranger. "Put that on.  _Now."_ As his...his  _friend..._ complies, Sebastian turns to Adam, his face is all over desperation. "Adam, it's really,  _really_ not what you think," he nearly whispers, eyes pleading for understanding.

Adam forces a smile. "I'm terribly interested in what it  _could_ be, darling."

He feels slightly bad when Sebastian recoils back from the statement, because he knows his tone was bordering on cold and Kurt has always said he looks rather terrifying when he's trying to keep himself together in the face of anger. But only  _slightly_ bad. Surely Sebastian understands how awful this situation looks, no matter their arrangement.

Adam can almost see the walls go right back up as Sebastian stands up very straight and tugs another shirt over his own head. "It's complicated."

Shirtless Guy has been watching the two of them closely while he put his shirt on - Adam is trying not to think about why the guy gets to wear one of Sebastian's old Dalton shirts - and understanding begins to dawn on his face. "Seb, wait up, does he not know -"

"Not helping," Sebastian snarls, and his voice is angry, his eyes still opaque and fixed on Adam. "Go home, Connor."

"I don't think I should, not if he thinks -"

"Connor!"

The guy rolls his eyes and ignores Sebastian, stepping forward to face Adam. "Hi. I'm Connor. I'm  _married_." Instead of thrusting out a hand to shake, he holds it up in front of Adam's face, the heavy gold band on full display. "And  _not_ to Sebastian, if you were thinking of going there. I'm straight."

It's welcome information that does nothing to defuse Adam's confusion. The situation has moved with much too efficient a quickness from  _this is_   _terrible_ to  _what now?_ and he feels quite unable to get a grasp on anything. "Right."

"You must be the guy Sebastian's seeing," the guy - Connor - goes on, looking for all the world like he's assessing Adam. What nerve. "He never said you were English."

"I...see..." said Adam, not really seeing at all.

"My wife's English," Connor clarifies. "From London."

Sebastian is still frozen, staring at Connor and Adam in turn. And Adam is just confused. "That's...nice?"

Connor bends down to pick up a wet and smelly bundle off of the floor. "My shirt," he says by way of explanation, rounding into the open kitchen and pulling a plastic bag out of the drawer Sebastian keeps them in. He carries on talking as he puts his sodden shirt into the bag and ties it off. "We had a chemical accident. I'm gonna go home now and let him explain everything."

"Okay," is all Adam can get out, which is still more than Sebastian seems capable of at the moment.

Heading towards the door, Connor snatches up a large sheaf of keys from the end table by the couch. "You're an idiot sometimes, Seb. Adam, we weren't formally introduced, but it was nice to meet you. See you guys later."

And he's gone in a wave of jingling keys and chemical stink, leaving Adam and Sebastian to stand staring at each other in the living room. The silence is very nearly deafening.

Adam breaks it first. "We're late."

"I know." Sebastian rubs a hand over his face, walls still up, eyes still unreadable. "I'm sorry. We ran way later than we thought."

Despite Connor's clarifications, Adam still has a wad of jealousy sitting lukewarm and sour in his stomach at the  _we_. Connor and Sebastian might not be lovers, he can accept that, but they clearly are close. Connor knows Sebastian. Knows him well enough to get away with calling him an idiot, well enough to use a nickname, well enough to get away with ignoring angry instructions, well enough to answer the door like he's been here a dozen, a hundred times before.

Who  _is_ he? And what were they doing that involves chemicals? And why won't Sebastian let Adam in the way he's clearly let this Connor person in?

Adam takes a deep breath and tells his circling thoughts to  _stop._ "I hope you'll explain what's going on."

Sebastian's mouth opens, closes, opens again and then purses up in a grimace of frustration. "I..."

"Because I will take you at your word and Connor's that nothing was going on, not that you and I can't see other people, of course," Adam goes on, watching Sebastian's face for  _any_ clue at all and, for the first time in their time together, allows himself to feel actively annoyed that he  _has_ to do this. Sebastian has every right to keep to himself, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating to be the one shut out after all they  _have_ shared. "I just wish you'd let me  _in_  sometimes. You're so  _difficult._ "

That last comes out in a rush, spiked with the frustration and unhappiness of the last several minutes. Adam hadn't quite meant to do it, but neither he doesn't exactly regret letting his frustration get the better of him for at least one small moment.

He's not super human. He  _is_ in love. There is only so much he feels he can do.

The outburst makes Sebastian jump, startled enough that he drops his mask for a moment and looks for all the world like a kid, one surprised by a dog barking at him for the first time. "Oh."

But the mask is on again in the next instant and Adam wants to scream. "I'm not trying to pry."

"I'm not trying to be  _difficult_ ," Sebastian snaps back before seeming to catch himself, shaking his head like he's shaking off water. A sigh lifts his shoulders. "I just...I...fuck it. Here." He reaches out and takes Adam's hand. "Come see, okay?"

"See what?" Adam is being tugged towards the bathroom, which, even including the benefit of the doubt seems a distinctly odd place to do anything with another person that  _isn't_ some kind of sexual act in nature. He sets the bakery box down on an end table and follows anyway.

Sebastian gropes inside for the switch and flips it, but the light doesn't come on with its usual brilliance. In fact, it's so dim as to be nearly dark, and then he closes the door behind them and it is all but dark, the light from the fixture a dull red. "This."

Adam's eyes take their time adjusting to the limited illumination. At first he can see only outlines of unusual things - the shower cubicle, with what looks like a table wedged into it. The toilet, with gloves and goggles heaped on the tank. The pedestal sink with a line of...something...stretched over it. And the entire room smells quite pungently of solvents and other chemicals, despite Sebastian turning on the extractor fan.

Sebastian, who stands near the door with all the nerves of a bird prepared to take flight. Tension is wired through the entire length of his body, visible even in the near dark. His face is blank, a careful and studied mask again, and is also Adam's only other clue as to the wariness with which he is being observed.

Whatever Adam is to see in here is something with a terrible amount of meaning to Sebastian.

"Take a look," Sebastian says, voice an expanse of forced calm as he gestures with the hand he doesn't have clutched white-knuckled around the doorknob. It seems for a moment as though he'll say more, but then he swallows the words down into his long throat and tips his head up...and waits.

The gesture indicates the line strung over the sink. Adam takes a step forward to better see what hangs from it.

His breath catches in his chest when he understands.

Photographs.

A baby girl, round and dimpled and fluffy-haired and with skin the color of luminous almond pearls is smiling out at him from the 8x10 squares, looking so alive Adam almost wants to pluck her free of the confines of the glossy paper and tickle her. In the first photo that catches his eye, she peers flirtatiously out from behind a stuffed duck with her huge dark eyes, dimpled hands squeezing the cuddly toy to her face.

He can almost hear her squeals.

Another photo shows her flat on her tummy, head up and alert as she reaches for a baby rattle. Her determination radiates from the still image, giving it depth and dimension. In yet another she’s held in the arms of a lovely woman who shares her smooth brown skin and long, long eyelashes. The woman’s tight, dark curls spiral down around her face and she’s smiling as the little girl reaches up in clear delight to grab at them. In another instant Adam nearly expects to hear happy shrieks and tender admonishments, to see curls tugged gently out of chubby fists, for the distance between their noses to be closed in an eskimo kiss.

“These are amazing.” He’s not even aware when he breathes the words out, captivated as he is by the sheer beauty and life in the images. As hard as it is to tear his eyes away, Adam looks over to where Sebastian is still poised for flight. “My god. Who...Connor?”

Sebastian’s hand slips off the doorknob and he tucks both of his balled up fists into his jeans pockets. “No. Me.”

“You?” It’s the last thing he expects, and yet what a delightful surprise.

“Me.” Sebastian won’t meet his eye. “The baby is Connor’s daughter, that’s why he was here developing the photos with me. I mean, he does photography too, that’s how we met, but I did these. Me.” He shuffles over to the line and pulls a photo from the back, handing it over. It’s Connor with the baby and the pretty woman, very obviously the baby’s mother. “It’s a hobby.”

“It’s quite brilliant for a  _hobby_.” Adam can hardly take it in. The photos are breathtaking, light and lovely and so real it aches. And Sebastian is  _talking_  about himself, that's something Adam can't even begin to examine. “These are incredible. Really. How is this only a hobby?”

“It just is.” Apparently the revelations are over for the moment. But if Adam squints, he can see that the mask has slipped again, just a little, and Sebastian is smiling, sweet and almost strangely bashful. “You do like them?”

“Of course I do! I mean, quite apart from being relieved that you  _aren’t_ seeing anyone else without telling me and the fact that they're amazing…” He winks. "I know this baby."

The look on Sebastian's face, like he's just been smacked in the back of the head - that's never not going to be funny. "You what?"

"I know her - and her mother." Adam brandishes the photo in his hand. It had taken a moment, but he’s pretty sure. "This is Rayna, yes?”

Even in the dark, Sebastian’s eyes are huge. “Um, yeah.”

“She's one of my customers. When she was pregnant with Kira she had a  _very_ specific craving for apple crumble.” The memory makes Adam smile as he looks back down at the photograph. How funny this world is. “Someone told her about New York City’s  _one_ British purveyor of baked goods, so she hunted down the shop to...ah... _convince_ me to make it for her. It's quite terribly English, apple crumble, you see."

The hilarious look on Sebastian's face hasn't budged. "You  _know_ Connor."

"No, I know his wife a bit, apparently," Adam corrects. "I'd never actually met  _him_ until today, I only ever knew him as 'Boston Cream Cupcakes.'"

"Boston Cream Cupcakes," Sebastian echoes, like he's not quite right in the head.

"When Rayna came for her little fix, she always bought a half dozen of his favorite cupcakes to take home to him. I just never met him in person." Adam laughs at the sheer ludicrousness of it all. "What a terribly small city this is, after all. First Kurt and Blaine, now this." If he were the sort to believe in fate, this would be an unmistakable sign.

"Yeah..." Poor Sebastian. It's a lot of information to take in, understanding how very and infinitely small the world can be when it wishes it.

Adam traces his fingers down Kira’s photographed cheek. "But truly, now." Time to stop teasing his poor darling. Sebastian clearly doesn't find this all as amusing as Adam does. "This is lovely work, Sebastian. Kira's a beautiful baby and you've well done her justice. I mean these are seriously amazing photos. How long have you been doing this?” He's almost afraid to ask it, afraid Sebastian will close off again...

But no. The questioning into something Sebastian knows seems to wake him up and guide him onto steadier ground. He even allows himself another small smile before answering. “Since I was six or seven. Started with some of the super old cameras in my grandfather’s attic and it just sort of went from there.” Sebastian’s shrug is a little too casual, his studied nonchalance a poor facade over the quiet happiness Adam can see sparking to life. “I did yearbook and school paper photography at every high school I attended, and took some classes during my undergrad.”

“You never said. Still waters.” With a grin he knows is huge and silly, Adam reaches over and tugs one of Sebastian’s hands free. It's just too lovely to see Sebastian happy with something he's done. “Has this been going on this whole time we’ve been seeing each other?”

He feels, rather than sees, the moment that Sebastian’s entire body goes rigid, the brightness fading from his face. “No. Just...it was...I put it away for a while. Before you.”

 _Ah_. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that  _that_  had to have done with the mysterious Greg, whom Adam is well on his way to wanting to dip in shellac and hang as an art installation, should they ever meet.  _Asshole In Resin_ , he’ll call it, maybe. “That’s a pity.”

"Connor is from...before," Sebastian tells him, the words halting and slow. "Before..."

"I understand." Adam squeezes the hand he holds and smiles, hoping it's reassuring. As much as curiosity eats him alive even now on whatever happened to Sebastian before they met, he won't push. It seems difficult enough for Sebastian even to hint that  _something_ happened.

He wishes he could make it better, though.

Sebastian takes a deep breath. "And all of this is from...before, too," he continues. He waves his free hand to encompass the line of prints. "And I thought I was done with it, but I woke up one morning a few weeks back...I decided to try it again. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was still getting comfortable with it again."

"I understand," Adam says again, and means it. There is an extra light of joy to Sebastian even under the tension of worry and Adam is happy that it exists, however complicated it made things there for a minute.

He...would like to do something so that things aren't so complicated in future, though. Adam looks down at the photo in his hand and rubs a thumb over its plain white border.  _But uncomplicating things is rather complicated in its own way, isn't it?_

A careful tread will be required. Cautious negotiations. A delicate hand.

 _But not tonight, I think_. Tonight, Adam decides, ought to be about celebrations, not negotiations. To rejoice in talent and unexpected revelations and the feelings he can demonstrate but never, ever divulge. He gives Sebastian’s hand an extra squeeze in his and starts for the bathroom door, forcing Sebastian to back up towards the door with him. “We really are terribly late for dinner,” he remarks, allowing his smile to beam well out of control.

Sebastian lets out a gasp as his back collides with the door and Adam presses up against him. “I...uh...I think we’ve actually missed our reservations.”

“Probably made some hungry tourist couple  _very_ happy, if you think about it.” Their faces are almost too close together to see clearly, the gap so minuscule as to be easily closed with a kiss, if Adam wishes.

He rather does. “I brought dessert,” he murmurs, close enough in to Sebastian’s lips to feel every hiccupping breath. “If we order in we don't have to leave this apartment until tomorrow night.”

“But…” It seems to be difficult for Sebastian to form coherent sentences. Good. “It’s your birthday…”

“And I should get to choose what I want to do, shouldn’t I?” Adam’s free hand slips up under Sebastian’s shirt and skims the warm skin. “Don’t you think?”

“I…” It’s too dark to really tell, but Sebastian’s eyes might be glazing over.

“And if I wanted to celebrate my birthday and celebrate your incredible talent by staying in with you, that would be good, wouldn’t it?” There’s a little line of skin along Sebastian’s ribs that, when stroked with a featherlight touch, reduces him to jelly. Adam, of course, knows exactly where it is. “That would be a nice sort of celebration, don’t you think?”

Sebastian groans and capitulates. “What kind of dessert?”

“S’mores brownie pie.”

Another groan, this time ending in the tiniest of whimpers. “With the little marshmallows?”

“With the little marshmallows, and I used the torch to make them all crisp and brown on top.” Adam sets aside the photo in his hand, to better enable the very slow unbuttoning of his shirt. “We can pop it into the oven for a minute or two and make it nice and warm.”

“Not fair,” Sebastian gasps out as Adam, now successfully shirtless, reaches over to be helpful and extract Sebastian from  _his_ shirt. “I can’t concentrate when you’re getting naked and talking food porn.”

“That’s the idea.” Skin to skin now, oh yes, Adam likes that. “Do you approve?”

“Yes, oh god, yes, absolutely.” Sebastian’s mindless babbling might have something to do with the fact that Adam’s just slipped a hand down the front of Sebastian’s jeans. “Whatever you want.”

“Good. Right.” Back out comes the hand, and Adam reaches around to open the bathroom door. “I’ll order dinner and warm the pie and you’ll shower?”

The light from the living room slants in to illuminate Sebastian’s abruptly forlorn face. “But, we, you…”

“I love your photography,” Adam assures him, slipping past him with a kiss. “And I think you’re amazing, and I abso _lute_ ly want to celebrate. I just also think you  _reek_ of chemicals, darling.”

He leaves Sebastian pouting in the bathroom doorway while he hunts down his phone so that he can order dinner. Jealousy, wonder, sensuality, reluctance, eagerness - there’s not a feeling Adam’s experienced tonight related to Sebastian that he doesn’t love in some way, if only because the intensity of them all rushes through him like electricity and leaves him feeling alive in a way no contact with another human ever, ever has. Complicated and unlikely as they are, this is the best relationship...or whatever it is...that Adam’s ever had.

Except for the whole fact that he can’t really  _tell_ Sebastian that.

Yet.


	19. Latent Image

Natasha has an apologetic look on her face when she turns to Adam, shop phone to her ear. "It's Mrs. Cartwright," she tells him with even more apology in her voice and, oh dear. Bad news.

"I'll handle it," he says, forcing a brighter smile onto his face before setting aside the basket he’s just filled with breakfast pastries and accepting the phone. "Hello, Mrs. Cartwright! Happy day-before-family-reunion day! What timing, we've got the last batch of cupcakes out of the oven and cooling, all five dozen will be frosted and ready by the end of the day -" A flurry of apologetic babble fills his ear and, as he deciphers what it means, makes his heart sink. "Three dozen _more_? Oh, dear."

The apology shifts into coaxing, pleading appeals as Adam considers the bakery schedule for the day and makes some shifts. It's Saturday, a day they're not usually closed, but they needed a full day without customers for decorating the existing Cartwright order for five dozen cheerful rainbow-decorated cupcakes, delivering one rather elaborate wedding cake to TriBeCa, and baking an order of vegan lemon poppy seed muffins for a small regional Unitarian Universalist meeting.

Not to mention Sebastian and Connor are coming in today for a photo shoot, so maneuvering in the kitchen is going to be tight. Adam pinches the bridge of his nose against the headache he feels starting. "No problem, Mrs. C," he tells the increasingly frantic voice on the other line. "I'm from a big family myself, I absolutely understand last minute additions to parties! We'll get that extra three dozen in, no problem. Two chocolate, one vanilla bean?" The voice is now gushing noisy gratitude. "You're very welcome. We'll see you at six tonight, then? Bring Madison, I'll have a special treat for her - yes, a nut-free caramel brownie, and I've got one for you too, of course I have. All right? See you then." He clicks off the phone and only now can he let out the explosive sigh of exasperation he's been holding back. Most of it he takes out on an innocent blueberry muffin, tearing a huge bite out of it. "Bugger."

Will looks up from where he's laying down the initial layer of sky blue frosting on some of the Cartwright cakes. "Three dozen _more_?"

"I'm afraid so. Bugger, fuck, shit." Adam sighs and hands the cordless over to Natasha so she can hang it up. "I think we can _just_ manage it."

Natasha looks nervous. "I've got to get Katarina from my ex's at four, Adam."

"Not a problem." He sounds more reassuring than he feels. "You'll be able to leave when you need to, and you're off at five on the dot, Will. Today will just take a bit of rearranging is all. Starting now." Taking a deep breath to fortify himself, Adam heads for the refrigerator where the six tiers of a raspberry cream stuffed wedding cake - alternating layers of chocolate and lemon cake festooned with dozens of Natasha's perfect buttercream red roses over a layer of antique ivory buttercream - are waiting to be delivered and assembled. "You two will have to take this down to the Grand _immediately."_

Will nearly drops his frosting spatula. "Adam, it's after seven in the morning, no one -"

"Poppy Lawrence is doing the catering for the LaPorte wedding," he interrupts, making his smile even more reassuring. "We all know Poppy is compulsively three hours early for setup so she can finish cowing the hotel's kitchen staff into leaping sky high when she says jump. She will be there, and she adores you, Will. It should be no problem to get her to get us refrigerator space early. Just get there, charm Poppy, assemble the cake and get out."

"We don't have enough frosting made for another three dozen cupcakes," Natasha frets, and if Adam's smile gets any more reassuring, it's going to slide right off.

"I'll get the new batch made and bagged while you’re delivering the cake, and I'll start piping the rainbows onto the cupcakes you’ve already have frosted. When you get back, you'll both take over frosting while I get started on the new cupcakes. It's all going to be fine, you two," and hey, he almost believes it. "The photographers will be here at eight, but don't rush yourselves, they'll still need time to set up."

It almost sounds sane. Like they could actually manage it. Maybe they can. Adam wonders how handy Sebastian and Connor are with frosting bags.

No, no. Best not.

Will and Natasha still look uncertain. Adam gathers them both up for a nice reassuring squeezy hug. "Don't worry about it! We'll manage it and even get the muffins done for the Unitarians, that's a small enough order. No problem. I'll stay late if I need to since Vanessa and Sarita are opening for me tomorrow." He squeezes his employees one more time. "We can do this. You two are my best, fastest decorators. I have faith in you!"

Natasha manages to muster up a smile. "Can we stop for coffee on the way back?"

"Make them very very large coffees for all five of us and it's a deal." A great deal more cheery with his work staff on board for today's insanity, Adam opens up the safe and pulls out a couple of twenties. "I have a feeling we're going to need the caffeine."

"No argument here," Will says with his own tremulous smile. "Come on, Tash, I'll get the big tiers into the back of the van." And they're off in a flurry of frosting and high-resonating nerves, the LaPorte cake carefully loaded into the Sweets van and the boxes strapped down, with Natasha the alert custodian of the top tier in the front seat.

Once they're gone, Adam looks around at his kitchen. Since they’ve been there for two hours, it's a disaster already, with Cartwright cupcakes everywhere in various stages of decoration - and there's no room for him to make more frosting. "Right, then," he announces to the empty bakery, popping his iPod earbuds in. With music soon going in his ears, it doesn’t take long for him to clear a space and line out bowls, frosting bags, and food coloring.

Industrial size mixers make buttercream a snap, even at quantities large enough to frost and pipe cloud-tipped rainbows onto three dozen cupcakes plus a little extra just in case the Cartwrights produce even _more_ relatives. Adam mumble-sings along to The Proclaimers as he tints and compares, checking to be sure that there’s as little to no variation in his colors as possible. “When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you…when I go out...”

Some bakeries might not be so exacting, but there is a reason that the team at Sweets has been climbing to the top of event planners’ recommendation lists for the last year. This kind of attention to detail is what got them both the Cartwrights and the LaPortes - and what prompted Theodora to finally email Adam to say, _Darling boy, we need a website and brochures. Make it happen, will you? No pinstripes or cartoon cupcakes is all I ask. Something nice._ _I trust you._

Hence Connor and Sebastian’s imminent arrival. Theodora hadn’t given him the biggest budget in the world, but it was enough to pay Sarita a bonus to design the promotional materials and site around the digital photography Sebastian had agreed to do for a small fee. “ _Why me?”_ Sebastian had asked at the time. “ _I’m just a -”_

“ _Great photographer with a real eye for people and for what might make a good picture?”_ Adam had responded, smacking a kiss onto Sebastian’s lips. “ _And I was hoping since I’m sleeping with said photographer that he’d work for the unfortunately tiny fee Theodora has offered…”_

He didn’t mention how interested he was in seeing Sebastian at work. At work doing something he really _loved._ The advertising agency didn’t count, in Adam’s eyes. Sebastian liked that well enough, but he _loved_ photography, that much had become clear in the weeks since it had been revealed. And he’d seen Adam at work dozens of times.

It was well past time that the tables were turned.

“ _I feel like a gigolo,”_ Sebastian had complained, but jokingly. He’d taken the job with an eagerness that surprised Adam a bit in its intensity. And he’d even gotten Connor to agree to assist him - for cupcakes. “ _For_ cupcakes _. What do you put in those things, Adam? Crack?”_

“ _Amaretto.”_

“ _Ah.”_

“But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more…” The final bowl of sky blue buttercream achieves the correct color at last. “Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door.”

Scooping the frosting into the bags and twisting them off is easy work that Adam has gotten down over the years. Singing along to a song he’s known his entire life is even easier. “Da da la da, da da la da…” He falls into a rhythm and a trance, slapping frosting in time with the music, not even noticing when his head starts to bob along, or when a bad imitation of his mother’s Glaswegian accent surfaces, or when he starts trying to sing both the Reid brothers’ parts. “When I come home, when I come home, yes I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who comes back home with you.”

It’s such a _good_ song.

“I’m gonna be the man who’s coming home….with you.” The next filled frosting bag doesn’t make it into the Rubbermaid container with the others. Not with the penultimate chorus coming up in eight beats. “But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more!”

Wielding a fierce frosting bag guitar, Adam abandons all pretense at work and takes full advantage of the empty bakery, bouncing around the kitchen and cranking the volume of his iPod up to deafening levels. Today is going to be _fine_. More than fine. They’re going to get all their cupcakes baked and frosted, Sebastian and Connor will do amazing work for the website, and if Adam’s very lucky he’ll get to take Sebastian home afterwards because once again, time has gotten away from them and that is far from Adam’s favorite thing.

But right now, everything is fine and the frosting bag is now a microphone as he spins in place.

“Da da la da! Da da la da! Dun da da da diddle la diddle la da d…”

_Oh._

On the far side of the bakery counter, Sebastian stands wide-eyed and a grinning Connor holds up a keyring, wiggling it and casting glints of light around the bakery when the keys on it catch the sun through the window. “So...you gave us a key.”

Adam lowers his frosting bag microphone. There is only one thing to do.

With his biggest smile, he trades bag for breakfast basket and makes an offer. “Scones?”

**********

“Hold your hands still.” It’s the fifth time in an hour that Sebastian has asked this of Adam, who obediently pauses in piping fluffy white frosting clouds while Sebastian leans in with his camera and adjusts the focus. “Hold...hold...and…” The camera clicks and buzzes. “There. Okay.”

All right. This is less fun than Adam had thought it would be. Connor and Sebastian have been here for _hours_ taking pictures, and it’s actually completely thrown off his hastily rearranged schedule in a way he had not anticipated. Natasha is pulling the last sheet of cupcakes out of the cooler with one eye on the clock - it’s almost three and her ex-husband lives in Queens. And is the kind of guy who gets snippy with Natasha if she’s even a minute late picking up Katerina.

He has two dozen more cupcakes to go plus the muffins to bake, and he could use his best decorator, but he promised. “Get out of here, Tash. I don’t want you to miss your train.”

“We’ve still got this last big pan...and the Unitarians -” But she’s whipping off her hairnet and apron even as she protests.

“We’ll manage.” As with this morning, Adam makes this sound much more reassuring than it is. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Sebastian peering out from behind his camera, with concern. “Go on, love. If Mrs. Cartwright comes in and we’re not done, she’ll just have to wait, won’t she?”

Natasha’s face is so relieved, he knows he made the right call. “Thank you, Adam.” Without waiting for a reply, she’s out the door running for the subway station.

Adam leans back down over the cupcake, piping another white cloud at the other end of the rainbow. “Don’t even think of volunteering to stay past five, Will.” He can hear Will’s mouth snap back closed and grins as he sets his finished cupcake to join its other completed compatriots on a nearby tray, ready for boxing.

“I could. James and Ginny won’t mind -”

“It’s your anniversary, absolutely not. Out at five. I’ll do the muffins. We’ll be fine. Keep rainbowing.” _If I never see another piped on rainbow again, I’ll throw a party. I bet I dream about them tonight. Ugh._ “Sebastian, pet, how much longer?”

“I think I’ve got all the shots I need, maybe.” He clicks out the storage card and slips it into the Macbook he has set up on Sweets’ lone table. “I’ll go through them and see if there’s anything else I could stand to get.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to get them another day.” There’s just no time for any more _Okay, hold still_. “Sorry, darling. I didn’t know…”

“I should have warned you I’m kind of a taskmaster,” Sebastian admits with a rueful smile as he sits down at the laptop. “I don’t really do candid.”

“So we’ve seen.” Adam winks at Connor, who’s stifling laughter as he gets some final shots of Will drawing rainbows onto blank blue cupcake tops. “Is that the difference between you and Connor, here?”

“Well, that and the fact that I don’t own a profitable camera and film shop, so I can’t actually afford to work for alcoholic cupcakes.” He taps away at his computer for a moment before getting back up and wandering into the kitchen again, camera free this time when he leans over Adam’s shoulder, resting his chin in the crook of Adam’s neck. "I didn't mean to take up so much of your time. I’m sorry."

"Please don't worry about it. We’ve got nearly everything done and besides. I liked watching you work." It had made up for all of the lost time and worry to see Sebastian in his element, no masks or walls. Behind the camera is the only time Adam’s really seen Sebastian completely lose the wariness in his eyes, that sense that he is always scrutinizing and assessing the world around him for potential pitfalls.

And he really does know and love his work. As intrusive as the constant _hold that_ had been, Sebastian has a real eye for a moment, even if it’s something as mundane as mixing up batter or sliding a tray of cupcakes into the oven. He works with precision, if not always swiftness, and there's no doubting that this is his element.

It makes Adam want to know _more_. But for now he contents himself with leaning back into Sebastian’s embrace while he gets on with his own work.

Neither one of them notices when Connor looks up and quietly snaps a photo of the two of them together.

Freed from the interruption of posing, Adam and Will manage to get all the cupcakes decorated, if not boxed, by the time Will’s partners come to retrieve him for dinner. And while the happy trio offers to stay, Adam all but has to shove them out the door. “You are not...boxing...cupcakes...on your anniversary! Out!”

He finds he can, however, ask Sebastian and Connor for boxing help, and Rayna too when she comes by to meet up with her husband. Adam is pleased to be allowed to play with a giggly Kira for a moment, tickling her until she squeals and bats at his hands. He’s even more pleased to hand her over to Sebastian, who looks panicked that he might drop the cuddly bundle until she pokes him in the nose with a dimpled finger and makes him laugh.

Best not to examine how _that_ makes Adam feel.

The Monaghans leave to grab dinner at their favorite Thai place after Mrs. Cartwright comes in with her daughter to pick up her eight dozen cupcakes, and, “Ah, alone at last,” Adam sighs, locking the door behind the happy family.

“Yeah. You, me, and an order for three dozen vegan muffins,” Sebastian chuckles, peering once more at his laptop screen and clicking through the photos he’s taken today. “You did promise dinner when we’re done here, right?”

“I made my legendary spaghetti sauce last night. We’ll pick up a loaf of French bread on the way back to mine and then all we have to do is boil some noodles while everything warms up. Quick as a flash.” He pulls down the ingredients for the muffins with ease - they’re one of the shop’s best sellers, so by now he’s got the recipe memorized. They should be out of here by seven thirty, if not sooner.

The sound of a noisy stretch and a yawn creaks over from the general vicinity of the Macbook. “Sounds great. We’ve been so busy at the agency this week, I could definitely use an easy night.”

Adam winces with guilt. “Then I am sorry to have made you wake up early and come work on a day off.” Fluffy yellow lemon zest falls away into a glass bowl under the onslaught of his microplane grater.

“It’s fine. I wanted to do it.” The reply is slightly absent as Sebastian clicks and drags. “Photography and spending time with y...here.” A cough, and then when Sebastian continues on, he sounds more alert. “I like Saturdays here already, getting to do this was a bonus. Really. And it’s digital, so I get to stay here and work instead of having to run off to develop the negatives and prints.”

 _Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder._ Adam tries not to let his smile wander out of control. It is easier to concentrate on his dry ingredients than to try to respond to Sebastian in any way that wouldn’t be...gooey. It’s just that every little relaxation of his guard makes Adam want to throw a parade in the streets of Manhattan.

_Let it handle itself. Don’t push._

He holds his hand over the bowl and sprinkles in the poppy seeds. But the click and flash of a camera comes out of nowhere to startle him, making him drop the rest of the seeds into the middle of the dry ingredients. “I...thought you didn’t do candid.”

“I don’t - on a job.” Sebastian lowers the camera from his face to reveal an endearing bashful smile. “This one’s for me.”

Adam never blushes, ever, but this...his face warms like a fever and he can’t look up from his mixing bowl. _You make it so difficult to remember that it might be a bad idea to love you._ “I see.”

“I wish I’d had a camera ready this morning when we walked in.” Peripheral vision only just lets him see Sebastian grinning. “You put on quite the performance.”

“I’d better, my college degree wasn’t cheap.” Poking fun at himself helps let the fever in his face cool down and melt away. In another moment or two he’s able to face Sebastian with a genuine smile as he blends wet ingredients into the dry. “It costs a lot of money to be that ridiculous, I’ll have you know.”

“I didn’t think it was ridiculous. I thought it was fun.” Sebastian sets the camera aside, pulling out a pair of reading glasses to perch on his nose while he works. “God, I haven’t heard that song in years, though.”

Batter blended, Adam starts scooping it into his muffin pans. “Whereas I heard it nearly every week of my life from birth to moving to the States.”

“Really? Why that song?”

“Why that band, would be the better question.” Pan one is set aside. He’s making pretty good time with these. “Did I ever tell you my mother’s from Scotland?”

Sebastian glances up, puzzled. “I thought you were British.”

“Technically you could say that I am, and so is my mother, but really, I'm English and she’s Scottish.” Adam glances up with a wink. It’s always fun straightening out the Americans. “Great Britain is an island of three countries, darling. England, Scotland, Wales. You can call my mother British - I don’t recommend it, but you can - but never, ever call her English.”

“Okay…”

He finishes filling pan two. “Anyway. The important thing is, my mother is from Scotland, and the Proclaimers have been her favorite band since she was a teenager. She actually met my dad at one of their concerts.”

“He’s from Scotland, too?” Aw. Genealogy would appear to give poor Sebastian a headache. He’s rubbing at his temples and frowning; Adam wants to soothe the headache away, but he’s got to get these muffins in the oven. “How are you English, then?”

He’ll have to settle for explaining while he fills the last pan. “No, Dad actually is from England. But he went to university in Glasgow. And he got dragged to a concert for a band he’d never heard of and while he was queuing for beer…” _Four...five...six…_ “He met this very short and terribly mouthy local punk schoolgirl trying to get beer of her own with fake identification. Which was going about as well as you would expect something like that to go.”

“It would have gone _very_ well if she’d had one of my fake IDs,” Sebastian says, chuckling into his computer screen. Adam’s eyebrows shoot up because oh goodness, isn’t _that_ interesting?

“You don’t say,” he confines himself to commenting, and congratulates himself on his restraint.

“I am a man of many hidden talents past and present,” comes the reply, delivered with a very self-pleased smirk. “Go on.”

 _That’s going to get chased down later._ “Well, you can guess that things didn’t go well for my mother with the beer man, but my father liked her spunk and her spiked purple and red hair and, he tells us all much to our dismay, her very short skirt.” _Nine...ten...eleven...and twelve_. Adam scoops up the pans and carries them to the oven. “I won’t say it was love at first sight, but it was certainly affection at first illicit beer. A little help?”

Sebastian scrambles to come open the oven door and help slide the pans in. “And they’ve been together ever since?”

“Mmhm. One graduate degree and two kids later, they moved back to my dad’s tiny little hometown, got married and had three more children.” Muffins safely in the oven, Adam moves to clean up the kitchen. “And the Proclaimers are still my mother’s favorite band, so I heard their music all my life. Don’t your parents have a favorite band?”

“I think my dad likes the Eagles. Maybe.” The oven door shuts with a thump. “Which are you?”

“Hm?” There’s a particularly sticky spot on the mixing island where Kira had flung a fistful of red icing. “Which am I what now?”

Circling the island, Sebastian shoves his reading glasses up on his head and picks up the bowls Adam’s just finished using. “I counted five kids. Which are you?”

Adam pauses in the middle of scraping at the red icing splat. It occurs to him all at once that this is not a usual turn their conversations take. This is a conversation that encompasses more than the events of their day or week or month. It’s not confined to work or the city or their immediate friends or what to order for dinner. This conversation is - and he hadn’t even noticed it happening as naturally as the sun setting - personal. It’s the most minute cracking open of a tight shut window.

Only last month it would have been unthinkable. He has to resume scrubbing to hide the fact that his hands want to twitch with nerves. He can only hope the deep breath he took to steady himself went unnoticed. “We’re talking about my family?”

“Well, it’s just…” Sebastian raises the dishwasher’s door, considers, shrugs. “You’ve never talked about them before.”

"It's not something that really comes up with us, though, is it?" Adam asks, striving for lightness. The question feels bold, as if he’s crossing a border checkpoint into an unknown land. There could be anything on the other side _. Not all cupboards lead to Narnia._ "Families and all that." He pauses to breathe. "We can talk about something else. If you like."

At last, understanding seems to dawn on the other side of the kitchen. Sebastian takes a step back from the dishwasher, lips pursed into an _O_ as he blows out a breath and lets his gaze wander far away. In his hands, the glass bowls slip against each other and make a clatter that brings him right back. “No, I...I want to know. It’s...fair.”

“Fair?”

“You know about my photography,” Sebastian points out, putting the mixing bowls in the dishwasher and silencing the chatter that gave him away. “That’s a...a thing, for me. It’s important. So...yeah. Your family is important, I could know about that. If you...if you want.”

The words had emerged like they were being dragged by a sloth and it’s a rather business like way to get to know each other...but Adam will take it, and immediately, before Sebastian rethinks whatever made him decide to open up. He tosses his sponge aside and makes his own dive into the sea of tension, ignoring how his stomach is churning. "All right, but fair's fair. One for one. Tell me something about your family. Like...what about you? Any siblings?”

For a moment, he thinks Sebastian won’t play along. Thinks Sebastian will bolt from the shop any second now, leaving Adam with the scent of lemon muffins and a vast gulf of regret for taking the chance.

But at last - “Not unless you count a Pomeranian named Trixie.”

Relief. Adam puts on a face of mock solemnity and grabs a wooden spoon, holding it out like he’s interviewing Sebastian. “And are you close to your canine sister, Mr. Smythe?”

“Not really, she’s the baby of the family so she’s everyone’s favorite.” Sebastian jokes back, pretending to have to compose himself to go on. “I’m afraid they never could get my shedding problem under control, and I just could not learn to stay off of the furniture.”

Both of them crack up at that, and it snaps the tension like a rubber band. It’s a game now, not anything frightening. Adam’s nerves fizzle, buzz...go silent. He can breathe again. “No, but really, no siblings at all, ever?”

“Uh uh.” Sebastian waves a chiding finger and resumes filling the dishwasher. “One for one. That’s the deal. Your turn. Which kid are you?”

“The middle child. Although to be fair, I was the baby until I was about fifteen.” Adam gets back to scrubbing down the mixing island, still watching Sebastian with care for any sign of trouble. “A bottle of champagne, a night of celebration, and nine months later...Surprise! Baby twin sisters. It was a bit of a shock.”

“I’d fucking guess. No wonder you’re good with Kira, hell of an age gap.” The dishwasher is full except for the three muffin pans in the oven, so Sebastian retrieves the shop broom and sets to sweeping. “I always kind of wished I had a real sibling. Connor’s the closest I’ve ever come. And I guess Kurt and Blaine, kind of, but...Connor’s more like a brother than they are. An embarrassing, loud, sometimes jerk of an older brother, but a brother.”

“I hate to break it to you, but that’s all older brothers. Trust me, I know.” He’s is almost afraid to keep asking questions, wondering if the wrong one will slam the cracked window shut again. But _can_ the window shut again? Maybe they’ve crossed too far in to go back… “All right, you know how my parents met. What about yours?”

Sebastian shrugs. “Nothing fun like yours. They met in law school. They’re kind of like the Clintons. Both in law, both smart, both workaholics, content with one kid and a fluffy dog.” He finishes up and allows a smile as he sets the broom aside. “They are from different places, though. Dad’s from Chicago, Mom’s from DC. So they have that in common with your parents.”

“Sounds like they’re still together, so they have that too.” They smile at each other across the kitchen. The island between them is clean. The floor is swept. The muffins are nearly done. They can get out of here soon.

What happens once they’re outside of the shop, though?

Adam circles the island, slipping his hand along the stainless steel surface until he’s standing in front of Sebastian. "Just so you know, I like this. That is, I like knowing more about you." He tugs at Sebastian's belt loops and smiles into the angular, worried face that he loves too much. "It makes you a real boy."

“I never wasn’t, I just…” Swallowing hard, Sebastian pulls his glasses down off of his head, hooking them down into the collar of his t-shirt for safekeeping before cupping his hands around Adam’s forearms. “All right. Look, it...it’s not easy for me. I think you know...but I like it, too. Just, you know. About you.”

That’s more, so entirely much more than he ever hoped for or expected, ever. “Is it terrible if I confess to wanting to know more?” He feels greedy, nosy, but with the oyster cracked open, it’s as though the world is his to own. “Is that all right? I mean...we can stop. Go back to how things were, never talk about ourselves again.” His mind and heart are in full scale rebellion at the very idea, but he has to make the offer.

The look on Sebastian’s face is anything but resolute, but he manages to keep his gaze steady on Adam’s face. “Something tells me you don’t really want to do that.”

“That would be true,” Adam admits, heart in throat. “Sebastian, I -”

What a time for the oven timer to buzz. At least it makes them both laugh. Adam tucks his face down into Sebastian’s neck. “Would it be quite all right if we continued this back at my apartment?”

“Well,” Sebastian says, a little breathless still with chuckling, “Yeah. I could really use a cup of tea right now, and I have it on good authority that that’s where I’ll find it.”


	20. Golden Hour

Years ago - he's not sure exactly how many, but he thinks it must be nearly twenty, because in his memories he's maybe eight years old - Sebastian experienced the exhilarating side of terror for the first time at a water park in Illinois.

It was the big slide – ten stories high, twisting red tubes spiraling from top to bottom. Of course he had to ride the tallest attraction in the park, never mind his father's cautions and mother's concerns. He'd been so excited as he waited and slowly climbed the stairs with his rubber riding raft, so eager to take the plunge.

He'd started screaming the minute he was tipped into the dark, watery tube. His stomach bottomed out, his throat was raw with shrieking and chlorine fumes and yet - and yet - within a few feet, terror was inextricably intermingled with the greatest thrill of his life.

This is what he remembers when Adam pauses, and -  _We can talk about something else. If you like.  
_

It could have been turned around right there. Sebastian could speak one word and they could forget that they'd strayed from their mutual unspoken agreement to live only in the moment.

He can't remember when  _no_ had ceased being a viable option.

The tea doesn’t happen. Neither does the spaghetti dinner. They don’t even bother to stop and pick up bread. They are simply far too distracted by the radical act of actually getting to know each other.

They talk, just talk on the walk to Adam's place, talking and talking in an endless river of questions and answers but never touching - not holding hands, though Sebastian knows Adam has to feel the same sort of electric snap between them that he does. Every revealed fact makes it crackle louder until it’s almost like it could come to life and consume them both.

By the time they get through the door of the apartment, Adam is all that Sebastian wants, needs, knows, can think about. The door has barely clicked shut behind them before Sebastian’s dumped his bag to the floor and has Adam up against the wall, hands on either side of his face to tilt it just right.

He’s watching, so he sees Adam’s eyes widen a split second before he goes in, feels Adam’s sharp inhaled breath catch his own and breathe it in when their lips meet.

It’s a kiss with no barriers, no boundaries, infinite possibilities and endless scope. Sebastian is kissing a  _person_ now, someone whole and three dimensional, someone with a family and history and an existence beyond two days a week, dinner and sex. Someone gorgeous and kind and utterly, stunningly ridiculous, someone with no fears or insecurities, someone who will dance around a kitchen and use a frosting bag for a microphone.

Their silent agreement has been shattered to pieces and swept away. He is officially in the slide. There's no going back, only allowing himself to ride the current.

Under his hands, pressed against the length of his body, Sebastian breathes Adam in, feels the warmth of blood rushing under his skin, tastes coffee and peppermint on his tongue. He catalogues all of it like he’s feeling it for the first time.

In a way, this is the absolute truth of it.

"What's your middle name?" The question is carried on the shortest of breaths between kisses, almost bursting out of Sebastian while he rakes his fingertips through the tousled softness of Adam's hair. He knows so much now, knows there are parents and siblings and a grandmother in a little town called Ingatestone. He knows about countryside rambles and a first kiss named David. He knows about years as an Anglican choir boy and interfamily football rivalries and never being able to forget a single word of  _Jerusalem_ (“We’re born knowing it. No, really.”) _._ He knows all of this - and that there is even more to know. His fingers slip down to fumble with the buttons of Adam's shirt as he breathes his question against Adam's mouth. "Middle name? You have one?"

"Elliott." His own top shirt is pushed down his shoulders by fingers that linger and press into his skin. It falls to the floor in a puddle. "What about you?"

"Michael." If he can’t get these buttons undone, he’ll rip the damn thing off of Adam’s body. "Did you have pets growing up?"

Warm hands slip up under his t-shirt and unerringly find the deliciously awful spot on his ribs that makes him weak in the knees. "Dogs. Several dogs. Mostly spaniels. So did you just do lacrosse and photography in school?”

Sweet  _Christ_ how does something feel so sexy and laughingly ticklish all at once? And why does Sebastian like it so entirely much? Revenge drives him to finally get the damn button-down off and to attack the newly accessible and reliably hard-on inducing expanse of Adam’s collarbones with his tongue. “And glee club,” he mumbles between tiny licks and Adam’s gasps. “You?”

Adam’s hands come up to grab Sebastian’s head and hold it still against his skin in some apparent attempt at control, but his short breath and upward shifting hips completely give the lie to the effort. “Dramatics society and swim team. Do you really know how to make fake IDs?”

Sebastian relents and moves back up to suck down another greedy kiss or five from Adam’s mouth between words. “Used to. I was good at it, too. It paid for my first Leica. Swim team, god, no wonder this body.” Yanking Adam’s undershirt off, Sebastian lets his fingers trace over collarbone, pectoral, sternum, abdomen. “Why did you come to America for college?”

“I wanted out of England and NYADA was the only place to offer me a spot in their dramatics program that my family could afford.” With a wriggle and a team effort, Sebastian’s t-shirt is removed and tossed aside. “What was the first thing you photographed?”

“My grandmother’s rose garden. What are your siblings' names?"

Adam stops, fingers tangled in the act of unbuttoning Sebastian’s jeans. "Maybe let's not talk about my brothers and sisters while you're trying to get my clothes off."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay." More kisses, never enough kisses in the world while he works at Adam's belt buckle and thinks. "Um, why baking?"

"Because I needed a job and Theodora had an opening and it turned out I was all right at it after a few really hideous mistakes. Why do you have a marketing degree if you’re so good at photography?”

“When your parents pay for school, you study what they tell you to study.” Yeah, okay, enough for now, that question is veering dangerously into really deep talk territory and...there are limits. Sebastian sees Adam’s mouth forming the next question and leans down to stop it in its tracks, closing his eyes again as he takes in the smell and taste and sound of Adam being kissed, wonders how he existed before he knew it.

The leather of Adam’s belt sussurates through the worn denim belt loops on his jeans and Sebastian throws it to the floor with a clink, doing his level best to never let Adam’s mouth go as they kick off their shoes and peel the jeans and underwear from each others’ bodies. Hands now free to roam, Sebastian lets his wander to Adam’s hips and pulls him away from the wall, steering him down to the low bed with a firm grip and desperate little moans.

They collapse to the mattress together and Adam presses his body upward, hands moving as if to roll them over so he’s on top, but Sebastian catches his wrists, arrests the movement and pulls back. The surprised questions in Adam’s blue eyes are as loud as if he were speaking with his voice.

“Not tonight,” Sebastian whispers, rocking his hips down and watching in fascination at the sight of Adam’s eyes falling closed when their erections slide against each other. He wants to cover Adam completely, to hold him down and make him come.

In all these months, completely at odds with his attitude towards anyone else ever, he’s allowed Adam to take charge the vast majority of the time, to top him and make him feel good. Selfish, yes, but Adam’s never made any secret of the fact that he gets off on his whole body worship kink thing, on making his partner fall into a thousand pieces, and why not let him? Sebastian had needed that badly for a very long time…

...not tonight. Not  _this_ night.

“Don’t lift a finger,” he breathes, tracing his nose alongside Adam’s. “Please.”

He doesn’t wait for a response before sliding down Adam’s body, fingers trailing down Adam’s arms, over his chest, along his torso. It’s not that he doesn’t know every inch of the skin under his touch, but how often do you get the chance to touch something for the first time twice? With nothing left to hide, Sebastian is seeing everything with new eyes, re-learning, re-memorizing.

Nothing between them, no more walls. If he’s honest he can admit they’ve been falling away for weeks, maybe for months. Cracking and crumbling and at some point he'd stopped bothering to try keeping them up. He'd simply allowed it to happen until he was forced to either run or leap.

In one second of alarming clarity in the bakery kitchen, he’d understood that he’d rather leap towards Adam than run away from him.

He lets his tongue flick over warm skin, sucks in kisses he knows won’t fade before morning. Adam’s fingers twist into the bedding when Sebastian gets to his hipbones, those prominent ridges with their thin, sensitive skin. Goosebumps stipple the surface in the wake of the broad strokes of Sebastian’s tongue, flooding him with satisfaction that he can do this, can make someone come undone.

Gently, ever so gently and slow as falling in love he kisses his way back down towards where Adam’s cock strains up along his abdomen, so hard the head is only barely brushing Adam’s stomach. It’s the work of a moment to take that swollen reddish-tinted cap into his mouth, to only just hold it between his lips and let the slight tastes of salt and a little bit of come overwhelm his tastebuds.

“Sebastian, darling,  _please_ …” Fingers ruffle over his hair, catching Sebastian’s attention and making him pull off, to look up to where Adam is gazing down at him with eyes wide open in every possible way, as readable as a book - desperate, wanting, needing...loving.

The half-smirk that had been forming on his face dies in a hurry at the lightning strike of it. No one has  _ever_ looked at him like this before, yet he knows what it means as clearly as if he’d heard the words.

Knows? Feels.

Whatever he'd thought love was before - he had been vastly mistaken.

_Oh. I -_

It goes through him in a wave, a thrumming echo that settles warm in the pit of his stomach when he understands.

Sebastian should be terrified - he is terrified, he's in the slide and there's no way out but down - but there are too many other emotions playing for his attention in this moment to be able to focus on the one that until today had been his greatest defense. It is these others to which he surrenders at last, to feeling and to  _feeling -_

Hands that cup, curl, curve to fit the shape of his skull, fingers that thread through his hair to clutch and tug.

A mouth that opens to let out a gasp, a groan, a shuddering, whispery sigh, his name.

Legs that stir restlessly, calves that tighten and relax, feet that flex and toes that curl into the sheets - Sebastian is everything and nothing more than the sum of his parts; fully, completely and terrifyingly in love with every shaking, quaking, strung-tight and desperate reaching inch of Adam Crawford under his hands and mouth.


	21. Exposure Latitude

In the dim light of the morning after, a small part of Sebastian wonders if it still might not be a good idea to run.

The sun is beginning to rise and filter through the layers of sheer plum and dove gray curtains hung over the kitchen windows. Between the early hour and the muted colors of the fabric, the tiny single room is still quite dark.

There’s just enough light for Sebastian to sit up against the wall and watch Adam sleeping in peace, draped in red bedsheets, gray light and charcoal shadows.

_You crept up on me._

He hasn’t slept. Not a wink all night. If he still smoked, he'd have gone through a pack of cigarettes, and he hasn’t entirely dismissed the notion of going down to the bodega a block away to get some. He is twitchy and amped with nerves.

_What am I supposed to do with you?_

The territory he's finding himself in isn’t exactly uncharted, no. He's been here before.

It's just that he knows now that the first time he thought he might be in love, his map was inaccurate and his guidebook missing several chapters. Sexual chemistry and genuine intimacy weren’t the same thing, they went hand in hand. With Greg he’d had just one but he’d stupidly thought he’d had it all.

Making that mistake had gotten him so lost, wrapped so tight around the ill-chosen center of his world that when it was pulled away from him he’d gone spinning off into deep space. Risking that again fills his stomach with a nauseating terror.

But...Adam is not Greg.

With Adam he has pancake breakfasts and slow dancing in the kitchen to Norah Jones and playful arguments and cozy dinners and laughing together in bed. He has someone who likes his photography and who makes him elaborate desserts and doesn’t make jellyfish-stinging backhanded compliments.

It’s different this time, isn’t it? All the evidence at hand tells his heart that this can be trusted, even as the back of his mind cowers away from the very idea.

 _This is not...that_.

He has to keep telling himself that. _This is not that_. One day it might even sink in.

 _But I can’t forget...that_.

 _That_ is what keeps the words locked up tight behind his teeth. _That_ is why he can’t sleep. _That_ has never, ever left him for more than a minute or two at a time in the last several months.

He can’t forget what brought him here, no matter how amazing here is, no matter his awareness that Adam loves him, too. It keeps him on his toes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sometimes his thoughts shift to _what if this becomes that?_ and he has to work to fight the urge to throw up.

Intellectually, he knows Adam would never...things wouldn’t... _this is not that_. In a thousand ways this is color over black and white, brightness over dark, a sunny precipice and not a deep yawning pit. He _knows_. There is no mistaking what he saw in Adam’s face last night. Having that isn’t what terrifies him. It’s the possibility of _losing_ it that props his eyes open and sends ice through his veins. Because _this_ is so much bigger than _that_.

This should be a safe place to land in every way. But _that_ still lurks and _that_ could still ruin everything because anyone who deserves _that_ happening to them - and he had deserved it, hadn’t he? for being so incredibly stupid? - isn’t going to get to keep _this_ , are they?

He’s never going to get to sleep. Rolling over, Sebastian leans out of the bed and snags the strap of his camera bag. Long practice enables him to pull out his trusty Canon by feel and to power it on without having to turn on a lamp and wake Adam.

The low light will be tricky - the light at his place was better - but he can make it work.

Click. _This is not that_. Click. _This is not that._ Click. _This is not that._

Sebastian only has the most vague of ideas as to how any of these might turn out, but he keeps going, shifting around the bed as quietly and as carefully as he can, snapping, snapping, snapping until the film runs out and he prays for luck.

If nothing else, he just wants to have captured one moment of _this_ _._ To have for himself no matter what happens.

Still quiet, still careful, Sebastian leans over Adam and places the camera on the end table, only the barest click as plastic and metal meets wood.

_This is not that._

He lets his hand fall to Adam’s waist, fingers splayed half over bedsheet and half over warm skin. His first kiss falls on Adam’s shoulder, pressed into the skin as if he could leave a brand behind with his lips.

The second kiss is a slow tracing of mouth from shoulder to neck, Sebastian lowering himself down over Adam to cover him as he touches and tastes. Adam squirms and rolls over under Sebastian, blinking in sleepy surprise. “Sebastian? What -”

Sebastian cuts him off with a third kiss, sliding up and over until he’s nestled between Adam’s thighs, fitting their hips together through the thin red jersey of the bedsheet. “Shh.”

_This is not that._

For a little while, if he could just not _think_ -

The soft fabric between them provides a gentle friction as Sebastian rolls his hips forward, groaning when Adam shifts up to meet him, half-hard and only getting more firm with each slip of their one body against the other.

The only sounds are skin on sheets, soft groans and harsh panting. Adam’s hands cup Sebastian’s face, and his leg comes up to hook behind Sebastian’s ass, pinning them together and cocooning Sebastian in the stretchy give of the fabric.

He feels warm and loved and covered and he doesn’t want it to stop but he’s still so -

_This is not that._

\- so scared.

Though he’d die before he admitted it willingly to anyone besides himself.

He rocks forward, cock brushing alongside of Adam’s and he _can’t stop kissing Adam_ , it’s always been his favorite thing, long kisses, sweet kisses, tiny lingering pecks and soft wet promises. Sometimes they taste like tea with milk and sugar, sometimes mint, sometimes whiskey and sometimes beer, sometimes like fresh buttercream frosting and sometimes like a middle of the night spaghetti dinner.

He kisses Adam as if one day he’ll wake up and he’ll never get to do it again, because he can’t convince himself that there’s not the slightest chance of that being a possibility.

Adam’s hand slips down and over the sheet to wedge between their bodies and - "Fuck," is all Sebastian can gasp or even think when it encloses his cock, lost in too many sensations to count. With the first slow strokes he can’t even kiss anymore, too helpless to do anything but rest his forehead against Adam’s, one hand cupped around the side of Adam’s head as his hips push, push and rock forward and his breath jerks out in harsh rasps.

_I love - I can’t -_

Taut as a steel cable from fingers to toes, Sebastian comes hard into Adam’s hand, spilling onto the sheet that separates them and his fingers curling into Adam’s hair. He can feel Adam arching underneath him, too, one hand around Sebastian’s jerking cock and the other digging short nails into the back of Sebastian’s neck.

They collapse together, panting in a heap of soft sheets damp with sweat and come. Adam laughs softly and smacks a kiss onto Sebastian’s forehead before flopping back down to his pillow. “Well. Good morning, darling.”

“Um..." He gets distracted by Adam's fingers brushing over his hair, the simple affection of the gesture making his heart ache and bringing all the turmoil back to the surface. It’s so _easy_ for Adam to be so loving and so open, fearless and generous and not at all locked away inside himself. "Yeah. Hey. Good morning to you, too.”

"And thank you." Adam's smile is sleepy and sweet. “It’s not every morning I wake up to a naked, camera-wielding photographer in my bed."

“I’m generally naked in your bed two mornings a week,” Sebastian points out, letting light sarcasm stand in for the sincerity he can’t handle. “Wait. You were awake?”

“Mmm." Adam's fingers trace back around to the back of Sebastian's neck to tug him down, the better for kisses between words. "The camera was the new bit. And not really awake, exactly. Somewhat aware for the last bit, I think. Didn’t want to interrupt you with the photos.” He lets out a yawn and stretches, one long leg breaking free of the sheet. “And then...well. Then I _really_ didn’t want to interrupt you.”

No one makes him smile or laugh like Adam can. That’s got to mean something, hasn’t it? Another check in the column of how _this_ could never in any way be _that?_ If he counts up enough of them, can he convince himself?

Adam lets his laugh fade into a soft semblance of a lopsided grin and runs a finger over Sebastian’s mouth. “Feel free to wake me up like that more often, darling. Quite enjoyable. If sticky.”

“At your service.” Banter is familiar. Innuendo is safe. “Maybe I’ll make a game of it. You’ll never know what I’ll do or when I’ll strike.” Sebastian grinds down against Adam just a little, just a hint, and raises an eyebrow. “I’ll be a sex ninja.”

Adam returns the eyebrow raise with interest. “Ooh. Something to look forward to, I like the way you think.” He stops, looking thoughtful, and bites his lip. “Although. Darling, those photos…”

“All mine,” Sebastian hastens to assure. _Entirely all mine._

He loses track of whether he’s thinking of Adam or the photos for a moment.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d distribute them, of course. Just making sure they don’t end up in the ones you send over to Sarita for the website.” The raised eyebrow shifts into a pair of licentious wiggling eyebrows, and Adam sticks out his tongue. “I mean, I think Theodora would probably go for it, but I’m not sure about New York City’s general dessert buying public...”

“I don’t know, a beefcake that sells cheesecake?” And when Adam lets out his big bright laugh at the ridiculous joke, it shakes the bed and runs warm through Sebastian like sunshine. He has to catch his breath before going on. “You might find your business increasing.”

“Right, well, if times get bad, I’ll bring the idea up to Theo and let her make the call.” Adam stretches again. “Speaking of food. Darling, I’m absolutely _starving._ ”

“Starving?” The explosive laugh escapes before he can stop himself. "We got up in the middle of the night and ate all the spaghetti!"

Adam clicks his tongue in mock reproval. _"You_ ate all the spaghetti _._ _I_ was once again distracted by you sitting at my table wrapped in nothing but my sheets." He waggles a cautioning finger. "I'm going to have to establish a dress code."

"Come on, babe," Sebastian says, shifting his hips again into that lazy rolling motion that pulls a low growl out of Adam's throat. "It's easier to resume fucking after dinner if neither of us had to dress for it."

Banter, distraction, sex, he knows his weapons and he can use them against himself just as easily as he can anyone else. Anything to avoid the elephant only he sees.

Adam lets out a sharp gasp and arches up. "You have a point….no, no, we're not doing that again. I actually am quite hungry. I think I could literally eat a horse.” He shoves gently, enough to dislodge Sebastian and send him rolling back off onto his side of the bed. “Please. Let’s go get pancakes.”

“ _Get_ pancakes?” Now he’s as mentally off balance as he is physically. The flipping over of their usual Sunday routine is abrupt, jarring, sets Sebastian off balance on too many levels to handle well naked. “Like...go...out...for them?”

Okay, he sounded a little on the dumb side there, but he’d rather sound dumb than let on just how quickly he filled back up with panic at the very idea of a Sunday pancake breakfast out.

Adam’s forehead rumples into anxious creases. “I mean, I know we have a...sort of _thing_ we usually do, and I feel just _awful_ , but I baked a _lot_ of cupcakes and muffins yesterday. Just... _so_ many fucking cupcakes and muffins.” Amazing how angelic and irresistible Adam can look just by widening his eyes and pouting. “Would you mind terribly if I outsourced our Sunday pancakes? Just this once?”

Sebastian goes still. They have breakfast together all the time. Well, twice a week. The difference between what they always do and what Adam is requesting is the _out_ part.

Going out for Sunday breakfast...that’s dangerously close to something a couple would do. Too much is happening too fast and all at once. Everything he’s pushed down and away and fought since January comes surging back to the surface.

 _Not a date_.

There’s a weakness in letting people in -

_No, not a date, dinner. Ooh, scary, scary dinner._

It’s just breakfast. Isn’t it?

_This is not that._

What happens if he just keeps moving forward, one step at a time?

He doesn’t want to lose himself again...

_One step isn’t a marathon._

Adam is waiting, fixing Sebastian with a gaze that grows steadily more concerned as the seconds tick past, answerless and cavernously wide open.

 _It’s just breakfast_.

Enough. If he can get through this and then go home and get some sleep, maybe he can get himself back under control. This doesn’t even have to be a step. He’s overreacting because he’s tired and confused and he’s making way, _way_ too much of a simple request.

“No, no, let's do it, let's go get breakfast.” Sebastian makes himself smile and reach over to stroke his thumb over Adam’s cheekbone. “Absolutely, babe. You worked hard yesterday, you deserve the break.”

“Fantastic. I promise I’ll make you a stack as tall as the Empire State Building next week, really I will.” With a quick kiss and smile, Adam rolls out of bed and heads into the bathroom. “Although, I only ever make my own pancakes. Do you even know anywhere we can get some decent ones?”

Sebastian considers as he sits up and fumbles a hand through his hair. "Maybe? There’s a place I know down in my neighborhood." He hasn’t been there in a while, but he seems to recall the breakfast menu being relatively edible.

Clearly being with Adam in whatever way he is with Adam has spoiled him.

The shower cuts on and Adam pokes his head out from the bathroom with a grin. "I think I can make the trek to the LES...if there's incentive."

"More incentive than pancakes you didn’t have to make?" Sebastian raises an eyebrow.

Adam makes a raspberry and beckons for Sebastian to join him in the bathroom. “Are the sheets on your bed cleaner than mine?”

“Lend me a clean t-shirt and some boxers,” Sebastian shoots back, “and I can make that happen.”

The laughter is a release, a full flood of relief, but Sebastian keeps the mantra running in his tired, overwhelmed mind.

_This is not that...it’s not, it’s not..._


	22. Reticulation

"Well, it smells promising in here, at least," Adam remarks as they join the crowd waiting to grab seats at the Finch. “I could absolutely _murder_ a danish. Just look at that display, they’re the size of my head!”

“Uh huh.” The sleepless night is catching up to Sebastian even more now after the nearly hour long trek from Morningside Heights, and he wants nothing more than a seat in a booth and an entire pot of the coffee he smells brewing. And, once breakfast is done, to drag Adam back to his apartment and use him as a body pillow while Sebastian sleeps the sleep of the dead.

It’s highly unlikely that’s what Adam had in mind when he agreed to come down to Sebastian’s neighborhood for breakfast, but honestly, that’s sort of just too bad. Good thing Adam does tend to be pretty agreeable to mutual napping. Sebastian does not anticipate having any trouble coaxing him into going along with it.

Christ, but he’s tired.

There is a bonus to the exhaustion finally kicking in: Sebastian’s turbulent emotions and circular thoughts have dissolved into an incomprehensible mush, overrun by the very clear and noisy reminder that his apartment, and by extension his bed, is just a few blocks away. All he has to do is stay awake through breakfast and then, oh, sweet sleep.

He's actually starting to fantasize about it.

They had better get a shot at a booth soon. He’s starting to hallucinate, maybe. He could _swear_ that the person who just came through the door -

“Sebastian?”

No. Wait. Not a hallucination. _Fuck_.

Sebastian is caught, frozen, can’t move, can’t speak. His dry mouth refuses to spit out any words of any stripe. Anger, courtesy, curiosity - they all desert him. In a moment he’s wide awake again and surging with adrenaline while panic overtakes him.

He literally cannot react to the fact that Greg - gorgeous, heartless Greg - is standing in front of him for the first time in almost seven months.

Of course. _Of course_. The Finch was the one diner in New York City he’d ever really gone to with any regularity, because it was convenient to both his apartment and Greg's. And of course he hadn’t been to it in months. Because he’d been avoiding most of the places he’d ever gone with Greg. And he’d been working so hard to push everything to do with Greg out of his life and thoughts that he’d actually managed to successfully _forget_ this place.

He’d been doing so well, until Adam’s inquiry about where to get breakfast and Sebastian’s worried exhaustion had let the Finch float to the surface of his mind. It had been the only answer Sebastian could have given - but it was the _worst_ answer, and all of his nightmares were standing in front of him because of it.

_Why did it have to be today that you wanted to go out for breakfast, Adam? We should never have left your apartment - I should have said no, should have Googled some other place, should have volunteered to just go fucking get bagels, why didn’t I go get bagels -_

Sebastian is acutely aware that, while freshly showered and wearing clean clothes, he looks like hell because he hasn’t slept in 24 hours. Greg, on the other hand, is as perfectly assembled as ever, his golden skin smooth, black hair impeccable, facial hair neatly trimmed. He is also not alone - and whoever his companion is, he’s just as polished and put-together, blond and blue eyed and clean-shaven. They’re like a coordinating set of expensive bookends in Ralph Lauren casualwear.

They both look happy and well-rested and Sebastian just wants to slap one of them. He’s not picky as to which.

He does _not_ have the energy or the emotional fortitude to deal with this. Already, he can feel his stomach knotting up, his heart turning painful slow somersaults in his chest. Hurt and anger start a slow burn low in his gut as every stinging memory resurfaces like a taunting bully.

He can't move. He absolutely cannot speak.

Greg and his companion are starting to exchange uncomfortable glances when Adam breaks the long, awkward pause by extending a hand out to Greg. “Hi. Adam Crawford. Are you friends of Sebastian?”

“Ah…” Greg shifts and puts on a faint smile. “I am, in a manner of speaking...I mean, it’s been a while...I mean, yeah. We know each other. My name’s Greg. Greg Arata.”

Adam’s eyes go wide and out of the corner of his own eyes, Sebastian can see the concerned glance being shot in his direction. _Yes, Adam. That Greg._ His jaw is beginning to ache from being so very tightly clenched.

“I’m Kevin,” volunteers the polished blond, extending his own hand for Adam to shake. “Kevin Henderson-Arata.”

 _What?_ That goes through Sebastian like an earthquake, almost kicking his already unsteady feet out from under him as he scrambles to process it. _What the_ hell _?_

“Oh. You’re...married?” Adam, no dummy, can put two and two together. His eyes are wide open in surprise and Sebastian can just about see him counting back the months.

 _Just about seven months, babe. Yeah._ It is a tastelessly short amount of time given the circumstances of Greg and Sebastian's split. Well, the circumstances of their entire not-quite-relationship, really.

At least Greg has the surprising grace to blush when he drags his gaze up from his shoes to meet Sebastian's. _I didn’t know he knew what shame was._

"Met in December, married in March," Kevin is cheerfully informing Adam, who, never very good at concealing his emotions, looks like a startled owl. "My mother almost had a heart attack, it was so fast, but...when you know, you know, right?"

 _December. How festive._ Sebastian can't take his eyes off of Greg, who is turning redder by the moment and keeps letting his gaze slide away. _You asshole. You fucking jerk._

Kevin is the only one of the group of four who seems oblivious to the tension, going on about the apartment in Park Slope they'll be moving into next month, his work as an accountant - "It's how we met! Greg needed someone to get his books in order before tax season." - their whirlwind romance and wedding and honeymoon in Belize.

_Belize. Did you rent the same cottage I fucked you in for five straight days before I caught you with a pool boy from the hotel down the beach?_

_When you hired a caterer for your wedding, was it that guy I found blowing you in the coat room at the Marc Jacobs party?_

Over and over, so many times Sebastian had lost count. So many other guys, and he could see them all so clearly in his memory because Greg seemed to _like_ getting caught, like he was driving the point home: _we are not together._

All of the fucking around, it had just made Sebastian try to hold on tighter.

All of the cutting remarks about his photography had just made him put it away.

He’d quit smoking, re-started drinking, bought new clothes that he hated, kept his mouth shut about the seemingly endless parade of other men and by the time a year was up, all he’d known was that he he didn’t like himself or Greg a whole lot, but for some insane reason he still wasn’t willing to let it go. He couldn't stop _trying_ , tying himself into knots to be whatever Greg was looking for.

He'd been so stupid.

“ _Ugh.” Greg rolls off of him and stomps into the bathroom, coming back and tossing a bottle of mouthwash onto the bed. “Listen, babe, you’re hot, but you know kissing you is like tonguefucking an ashtray, right?”_

Every memory pierces with the sharpness of a needle stab in the soft crook of his elbow.

_At Rave, on the dance floor, Sebastian shouting that he has to go in to the office in the morning. “Sure, go ahead, if you’re tired. Ricky can keep me company.” A sly glance from the sleek, dark skinned guy grinding up on Greg’s ass, a moment of uncertainty, a decision to stay._

_Greg goes home with Ricky anyway._

He’d been like a dog who couldn’t stop loving the master that beat him. Worse, he’d known it the whole time and still couldn’t give up on Greg. Greg was like a drug, a habit he couldn’t kick.

Then the habit had kicked him, instead. If he hadn’t stumbled blind and shaken into exactly the right bar that night he -

\- No.

Kevin finally falters to a stop in the middle of recounting their search for the new apartment, taking in Adam’s horror, Greg’s difficulty meeting anyone’s gaze, and Sebastian can only imagine what he himself must look like when he snarls, “Did he ever mention me to you?”

_Did he tell you he was fucking me while you were getting to know each other?_

_Did I even exist in your world before this moment?_

_Was I really nothing?_

He knows the answer, of course, long before Kevin swallows, shakes his head, whispers, “I’m sorry, no.”

Sebastian’s stomach twists anew at the fresh reminder of harsh rejection, of not mattering.

_It wasn't that he didn't want a relationship._

_He just didn't want me. It didn't matter what I did._

Greg chooses then to take a deep breath and attempt to redirect the conversation. "You have your camera bag,” he comments, only the barest of shakes in his voice as he keeps a wary eye on Sebastian and _t ries_. “Are you doing photography again? Is there anything I can see?"

But the _trying_ , the _effort,_ it’s not a balm, it’s a slap down on a wound that is too raw still, too freshly patched over with skin too thin to hold it together. Greg's query tears everything away and leaves Sebastian rooted to the spot with all the toxic memories burning like ammonia through his veins, erasing reason and logic and _this is not that_.

The last straw is Adam reaching to take Sebastian's hand. He _knows_ it's meant to be supportive, meant to defuse the tension he knows is radiating off of his entire body. Sebastian knows this.

But faced with everything that's haunted him for so long, Sebastian falls deep and fast into too many memories of Greg pulling his hand _away._

_"We're in public. Someone could see and get the wrong idea."_

When Greg’s fingers trace over the strap of Sebastian’s bag, all he hears is, _"It's all right work. It's not Leibovitz. I dunno, Seb. Maybe a stock photo place would buy it?"_

And overpowering the growing mute apology in Greg’s eyes -

_"So this thing's over, okay. I met someone."_

Like a year of trying, bending, changing, hating, loving - like it could be crumpled up and thrown away. Like _he_ could be crumpled up and thrown away. A poisonous swell of panic overwhelms his mind and fills his stomach. Everything so hard won in the last few months disintegrates under the onslaught.

_I can’t do this. I can’t let someone do that to me again._

"I have to go," he chokes, and this time there's no room to wonder.

He tears his hand away, stumbles two steps -

And he runs.


	23. Interlude - Voices In Machines

Sebastian, it's Kurt. I have no idea what is going on. Adam looks like hell and isn't answering questions. I can only assume you look like hell too, and I would  _love_  to know why you aren't answering our calls. Blaine and I are worried sick about both of you and we  _will_  get answers one way or another. Call us back.

_Adam, it's Natasha. If you don't feel up to coming in, you know that's all right, yeah? I mean, you don't look like you're sleeping enough, okay? And you're here almost every day so...Will and Sarita and I can handle today. It's really not a big deal. Stay home. Oh - wait. You just came in. Okay. Bye, I guess._

It's Connor. If you don't start returning my calls, I'm gonna start dropping in. I know something's wrong, dude. Not asking you what, but I'll be fuckin' damned if - okay, Rayna, sorry, yeah, I know Kira's starting to pick up stuff, sorry - listen, Sebastian. I'm not letting you disappear again. Call me.

_Darling, it's Theo. The mock up of the website is beautiful, perfect, exactly what I wanted. And those photos! Where did you find someone so good on our budget? I've got people here interested, you should remind me of his name. Oh! And I'm bringing home a sample of a Bulgarian cookie, I'll want you to add it to the shop inventory. Love and kisses, see you in a week._

Seb...Sebastian? Um...I didn't know if this was still your number...it's Greg. Shit. Okay. You probably knew that. Listen, you didn't look so good when you left the Finch the other day. I just. I mean, I know it's rich coming from me but I wanted to make sure you're okay. Wanted to check on you. Did your friend catch up with you? Give me a call, okay?

_Adam, it's Blaine. Kurt asked me to call you and invite you to dinner. He's making chicken cacciatore especially for you. Please say you'll come. You could even pack a bag and stay over a few nights, you know our couch is yours whenever you want it. Come on, I bet you could use a break. Call us? We want to help, if you'll let us._

Sebastian...please, darling. I just want to know you're all right. It's been a week and I...please. Please call me. I don't want or need anything from you but to know that you'll be all right. I hope you're all right. Please.

  
  



	24. Set Adrift

"Get out."

 

Adam pauses in the act of stepping over Sweets' threshold, blinking in surprise at the greeting he's just received. "I beg your pardon?"

  
"Out." Theodora, in town as promised for one of her periodic visits, does not look up from where she is perusing Sweets' account books, doesn't even so much as flick a glance over the gold rims of her reading glasses before she points at the door Adam just entered. "Not another step, darling love, or you're fired. For a week."

 

"That's hardly...I didn't..." Exhaustion and confusion reduces Adam to sputtering protests in a hurry. "You can't do that!"

 

"Can and will." Despite the threat, Theodora's gaze is soft when she does finally look up to face Adam, her smile sympathetic. "Sweetheart. Any employee who falls asleep standing up while operating an electric cookie press is an employee that needs to rest."

 

Adam glares over the counter at Natasha, whose fair cheeks turn bright pink before she ducks her head in apology for her obvious tattling. "Sorry, Adam."

 

"Judas." Not that he really means it. He knows he's not himself lately and certainly not up to par with his usual standards of work - waking up to Natasha’s shrieks and a sprawling lake of thawing cookie dough all over himself and the center kitchen island proved  _that_. It's just...

 

...he doesn't know what else to do to fill all the sleepless hours while he waits for a call, a text, an email, for any form of contact that just won't come.

 

It's been two weeks.

 

"Take a walk with me, Adam." Theodora picks up her purse and comes to take his arm. In two seconds her gentle but implacable shove propels him out of the bakery door and onto the sidewalk. "Let's chat."

 

With her arm tucked firmly in with his, there is no way Adam can extricate himself without things becoming very awkward and possibly involving the police, so he sees little choice but to walk up Broadway with her, heading in the direction of his apartment. "I really would rather work," he tries, ignoring both the urge to yawn and to rub his eyes. "I'm fine, Theo."

 

"You look like hell," she replies, as casually as if she'd just informed him of the time of day. "I would sincerely love to know the last time you slept through the night."

 

 _Two weeks ago._ "Last night."

 

"You are a good actor, Adam, and an absolutely terrible liar."

 

They stop at a crosswalk, and he takes the opportunity to level a glare on his employer that, much to his annoyance, doesn't phase her one bit. It gets his back up. “Is this sort of forthright meddling a Belgian trait or simply a Theodora one?”

 

Her only reaction is to raise one expertly groomed eyebrow. "I stand by what I say. You  _do_  look like hell. When  _did_ you last sleep a full night? Not any time recently."

 

Not willing to risk another caught-out lie, he evades. "I can work."

 

"No, Adam. You can't." The white pedestrian light flashes, her signal to pull him across the street. "Everyone loves you, and they have done their very best to protect you, but they're worried, love. Will says if you're not at the shop, you're at the theater for your play. You've come in  _every day_  for two weeks and on weekends you work open to close." She uncouples their arms, ticking things off on her fingers. "Burned muffins, falling asleep standing up, inaccuracies in the account books...you're not in trouble, darling, but can't you  _please_ tell me what's wrong?"

 

He forces a smile. "I'm fine."  _I'm not._ "Really, Theo. You know me, I just like to work hard."

 

"There's a difference between a good work ethic and driving yourself into the ground." The naked sympathy and concern in Theodora's eyes is nearly too much to bear, as anyone's sympathy has been these last agonizing days. Pity is acid on his skin, worry a leaden lump in his throat. "What is going on?"

 

 _How can I possibly explain how the man I think is the love of my life literally ran away from me? Shouted at me and left me standing in the street and won't talk to me?_ Just thinking about it is a knife twist to the gut. Trying to talk about it has been like holding a clutch of glass on his tongue.

 

While not, generally speaking, a violent person, Adam has been entertaining images of visiting physical mayhem on Greg Arata for two weeks. Because of course, this all goes back to Greg. Adam doesn't know the whole story, but that part - that is crystal clear.

 

_"Don't you get it, Adam? I'm doing you a favor. Get rid of me, you can trade up."_

 

The story of what happened hurts like a broken bone and is full of holes. He hasn't managed to get it out to anyone yet.

 

Metal scrapes against flint, catching his wandering attention, and a licking tongue of flame nearly takes out a chunk of Theodora’s hair as she lights a cigarette. "Fine. I don't need to know - if it affects your work, it's bad enough, whatever it is."

 

"I want to work, Theo."  _I have to work._ The only way Adam has been getting even the paltry, restless sleep he can manage between nightmares is because he's exhausted at the end of every day from being on his feet baking endless trays of desserts or running full out at  _Earnest_ rehearsals. The only way he can stop worrying about Sebastian is by throwing out all of his standard recipes and concentrating on creating a new rotating menu of goodies while he commits the entire script of the play to memory. All Adam has to fill the hours of aching loneliness and his unhappy memories is the bakery and his work at the theater.

 

Take one of those away...it can't be long before he gives in and actually goes mad.

 

Theo exhales in a long stream of acrid Gauloise smoke and shakes her head. "Just take a week, sweetheart. Rest, sleep, relax. Then I can let you work. Here." Rummaging in her purse, she pulls out a long envelope and a small box. "The cookie sample I told you about - it’s a recipe called  _medenki_ \- and your pay for the week, in advance. Do something fun."

 

 _Fun. Sure._ "Theo..." he says softly, wondering what words he can muster to make her change her mind. He needs to work.

 

"Not another word." She presses a finger smelling strongly of smoke over his lips. "Get home. Take care of yourself. You're quite important to me and to everyone who loves you.”

 

 _For all the good it does me._ Adam has to look down and swallow hard.  _Don’t cry in public. It’s so undignified._

 

It doesn’t get any easier when Theodora cries out, “Oh!” and goes through her purse again to pull out another envelope. “I nearly forgot. That photographer - Sebastian? He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

 

Apparently there was a limit to how much information his employees had given Theodora on his personal life. Adam doesn’t know whether to laugh or have a nervous breakdown in the middle of the street. “Ah...yes?”

  
“I brought the check for the lovely work he did. Maybe you can give it to him?” She holds out the envelope with expectation on her face, shaking it a little when Adam doesn't immediately take it. “If you’re going to see him any time soon, at least.”

  
“Right, yes, of course.”  _I wish._ “I’ll see that he gets it.”  _I’ll mail it. Since he won’t answer the phone, let alone the door._

  
"I’ve got to get back and untangle the mess you’ve made of the books." Theodora plants a kiss on his cheek. “And I’ll see you in a week - no sooner.”

  
She disappears into the southward trickling river of pedestrians, leaving Adam with an endless week alone ahead of himself and no idea what to do with it.

  
With a sigh, he hitches his backpack more securely on his shoulder and resumes trudging back towards his apartment, to empty silence and the least restful bed in Manhattan.  _I don't know what to do._ Sebastian won't answer his calls, he's forbidden to go to work, and the idea of a week alone with his thoughts spinning with helpless, unanswerable questions does not appeal. He has rehearsal for  _Earnest,_ of course, but that's only a few hours a night, much of it spent dodging  _Kurt's_ unanswerable questions and invitations for dinner.

  
He is so tired, and he knows so little, and it hurts so much.

  
The street before him shifts and blurs, Broadway becomes Delancey and he can see himself bolting out the door of the Finch after Sebastian. Remembers how it took a full block of running and shouting Sebastian’s name just to get him to stop and turn around.

  
 _His eyes were what I think hell must look like._

  
He’d never seen anyone holding that much anger behind so fragile a barrier.

  
“ _Darling…”_

  
 _A flinch like he’d been struck. “Go away.”_

  
_Adam rocks back in surprise, as if the rebuff had been a physical shove. "What?"_

  
_"Go away. This - you and I - should never have happened."_

  
He didn’t understand - still doesn’t - but he had tried, reached, pleaded -

  
But the walls were back up and Adam could not get through.

  
“ _Go away. Forget we met._ He  _did.”_

  
“ _I’m not him - ”_

  
“ _I’m not fucking giving you the chance to be.”_

  
Adam’s last sight of Sebastian was watching him turn and walk away. And that time, Adam had let him go.

 

He never would have if he'd fully understood just how complete the break would be.

 

These are the memories he can’t bear to spend a week replaying over and over and over. Let his guard down for a minute and he will be flooded with images of green eyes gone dark and hard, words flung like stones.

 

“ _Did you think you could_ fix  _me, Adam?”_

 

He can’t do it. He will lose his mind if he has to try.

 

Adam blinks, holds his eyelids tight shut until the threatening tears recede and he can focus on his actual surroundings.  _Broadway. Morningside Heights. My neighborhood. My home._

 

His friendly neighborhood liquor store.

 

It’s there on the other side of the street, dingy and small and, as he recalls, smelling quite strongly of disinfectant and industrial bug spray. He’s only been in a handful of times before, picking up wine for dinner parties and the like.

 

Now...might be a good time to pay it another visit. Give himself something to do to keep the memories at bay.

 

Drawing back his shoulders, Adam marches across the street and into the shop. Within twenty minutes he’s struggling up the stairs to his apartment with two plastic bags full of clinking glass bottles and a nebulous plan in his weary mind.

\----------

"Adam?"

 

_If he could just move, unstick his feet from the sidewalk and run after Sebastian again, maybe this time - this time - maybe he can change the outcome - why can't he move?_

 

"Adam!"

 

Adam jolts to full awareness when his elbow is shaken, the shock of it making him squeeze down reflexively on the frosting bag clutched in his hands. "Shit!"

 

"Shit!" Kurt echoes, his tailored waistcoat liberally decorated with an ejaculation of pale beige buttercream. "I just got this back from the dry cleaner!"

 

"I'm sorry," Adam gasps. His heart is racing from the surprise, his fingers aching from squeezing the frosting bag so tightly. He blinks to clear his vision, startled to see that he'd drifted off sitting at his kitchen table, in the middle of frosting a pan full of cupcakes. His eyes are gritty and his neck has a crick in it from drooping at an awkward angle for three nightmarish repeats of that interminable sidewalk conversation, three times when he'd failed again to change what happened.

 

This is not his best moment.

 

Blaine's fingers come around to loosen Adam's from the frosting bag and tug it away. "Hi there."

 

"Hi." The yawn escapes him before he even knows it's coming. "God. How long -"

 

"We just got here. Kurt was worried because you weren't picking up the phone or answering texts." Blaine's eyes are wide as he gazes around the room, taking in the fact that every available surface is covered in trays of baked goods. "I guess I see why."

 

Adam can't stop yawning.  _So tired._ "I got on a roll."

 

"And a muffin, and a cupcake, and a tart..." Kurt, too, is wide-eyed, brushing a damp washcloth down the front of his waistcoat, seeming not to notice that he's already gotten all of the stray frosting off. “Oh my god, Adam.”

 

Even with Blaine's help, Adam's back and legs hurt when he stands up. He must have been out for a while. "What? I'm a baker. I bake. That's what I do."

 

"Yes, but your apartment has finite space for being occupied with humans  _and_  desserts, and it was approaching critical mass  _before_ Blaine and I arrived." Tossing the washcloth into the sink, Kurt picks up a tray balanced on top of the dish drying rack. "What the hell are these?"

 

Ugh. He’s never going to get the crick out of his neck. Adam rubs at the sore spot and squints across the room. “Ah...Black Forest cake pops soaked in kirsch and dipped in chocolate.”

 

“Really?” Kurt surveys the tray with surprise and picks one of the pops off, taking half of the confection into his mouth in one bite. “Oh, god, that’s good.”

 

Blaine reaches up to rub at Adam’s neck with one hand, pointing the other at the cupcakes arrayed on the table and on the counter space not taken up by trays of cake pops. “What about those?”

 

“Dirty Girl Scout Cupcakes.” At their blank looks, he elaborates. “They’re made with Kahlua, Creme de Menthe, and Bailey’s.”

 

Nibbling at the other half of his cake pop, Kurt opens up the refrigerator and takes a peek. “Jesus Christ.”

 

Adam sighs. “Brandy snaps, blueberry bourbon cheesecake tarts, rum blondies, I used the rest of the Kahlua in the chocolate chip cookies in the jar by the toaster, and there’s a lemon vodka bundt cake in the crisper drawer.”

 

Kurt raises an eyebrow as he closes the refrigerator door. “Was there anything in the crisper drawer  _before_ your boozy cake took up residence?”

 

“The apples I used for the Amaretto apple pie cooling on top of the refrigerator,” Adam admits.

 

Blaine’s hand stills in its efforts to work the kink out of Adam’s neck. “Holy shit, Adam.”

 

“Did you just…” Kurt waves a hand around the kitchen. “Did you spend the entire day drowning your sorrows not in  _drinking_ alcohol, but in making dessert with it? As in, this is your actual coping mechanism?”

 

A glance out the window shows Adam that it’s quite dark out. Huh. He’d started this morning, hadn’t he? “What time is it?”

 

“After seven,” Kurt informs him.

 

Adam shrugs. “Then yes, I suppose that’s exactly what I did.”

 

Kurt just stares at him for a moment and shakes his head. “Okay, that’s it,” he announces. “We got here just in time. Step away from the binge baking.”

  
“Well, as it happens, I had stopped for the night already.”  _Only because I ran out of flour and eggs, but you don’t need to know that._

 

“Step away for a few  _days_ , I mean.” When Kurt crosses his arms and lifts his chin, Adam immediately recognizes the signs of his friend preparing to go into battle. He’s seen it so many times - it’s rather interesting to see it deployed against himself.

  
Interesting and slightly frightening. But Adam’s parents did not raise him to be a coward, thank you. He draws his shoulders up, ignoring the twinge of pain this causes in his neck. “Ah, no, I don’t think I will.”

  
And there’s the familiar arched eyebrow. “I came prepared to drug and kidnap you if -”

  
"Kurt, oh my god, no, I told you we’re not doing that, what is wrong with you?” Blaine turns to Adam with a horrified look on his face. “I swear, I did  _not_ come here to drug and kidnap you, Adam.  _I_  thought the plan was to ask you  _nicely_ to come stay with us for a few days.” He levels a glare on Kurt that would make any lesser man wither.

  
“That was before we saw him turn his 500 square foot studio into a booze soaked annex of his primary place of employment,” Kurt protests.

  
“The  _civilized_ invitation still stands.” Sighing, Blaine returns his attention to Adam. “Please, Adam. We would actually like it if you come out and stay with us for a while. A couple of days at least. We want to help.”

 

It’s too much to bear. Adam steps away and into the kitchen area, heading for the sink full of dishes he’d been counting on keeping him occupied for the rest of the night. “I very much appreciate the offer, but as you can see I have quite a lot to do here, and I have to work tomorrow -”

  
“No, you don’t,” Blaine says. His voice is soft, but it stops Adam in his tracks, frosting-streaked mixing bowl in hand.

  
He forces a laugh. “Of course I do.”

  
“No, Adam. Tomorrow’s Sunday. You don’t work on Sundays.” It’s Kurt’s turn now, and his voice has gentled its sharp edges. “And anyway, Theodora called me. I know you’re off for the next week.”

  
All right, that’s a shock. Adam turns to stare at Kurt. “Theodora what?”

  
“I’m your emergency contact, Adam. Remember? She called me to make sure we kept you out of the bakery and made you rest.” Kurt’s battle game has shifted from belligerent authoritarianism to logic, kindness and sympathy as quick as a flash.

  
In Adam’s overworked, hurting, weary state, it is devastatingly effective at last. His hands drop to his sides, the frosting bowl knocking against his leg and probably getting bits of buttercream all over his jeans. He doesn’t care. There’s no more fight in him, no more stoicism, it drains away in a moment.

 

He’s just so  _tired_  and everything hurts so  _much_.

  
So he gives in. Lets them help him clean up and pack a few boxes of the treats and a bag and take him to Brooklyn. Half-listens to them babble and argue playfully through the hour long train ride, lets Kurt take his arm and tug him up the stairs to their apartment, doesn't resist when Blaine takes the bags out of his hands and gently pushes him down onto the sofa, where he sits while they put dinner together.

 

“I’m going to be popular at the faculty inservice on Monday,” Blaine remarks as he hands Adam a plate of chicken cacciatore. “I don’t know how much planning we’ll get done for the school year, but boy, will people be happy about it.”

 

“Uh huh. Just leave me some of those cheesecake tarts.” Kurt flops down on the couch next to Adam with his own plate and a glass of wine. “Hey, we could put a movie in, if anyone wants?”

 

“Have either of you heard from him at all?” Adam blurts out, too desperate to stand the sheer tedium of trivia and small talk anymore. Leaving his apartment hadn’t meant leaving the elephant in the room behind, and he was tired of pretending not to notice it.

  
They stare at him for a moment, and then - “Oh thank  _god_ you finally brought it up, I was going out of my mind,” Kurt breathes.

  
“I need to know.” Setting down his plate, Adam accepts his own glass of wine from Blaine. “Kurt, please.”

  
But Kurt shakes his head. “Not a word. I mean, we’re not too worried, exactly, since Blaine’s  _his_ In Case Of Emergency guy and we haven’t heard anything from the police. Which is good, since I don’t think we have bail money -”

 

“But he won’t talk to you either.” Adam drains half the Chardonnay in a long gulp. “Fantastic.”

 

Kurt and Blaine exchange glances. "I'm sure you know we've tried..." Blaine begins.

  
"And he's not answering anything. Yeah. I know." Despite Kurt’s assurances about not hearing from the police, Adam feels no better. He misses Sebastian, and he’s worried about him, and there is nothing at all reassuring about any of this. “Fuck, I hate this, I hate all of it.”

  
“What even  _happened_ , Adam?” Blaine shifts in to sit on Adam’s other side. “Literally all we know is that something is going on, and we only know that because you have been looking like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards for the last two weeks and Sebastian won’t even answer his door or his work phone.”

  
“Also, you called me Kurt in rehearsal yesterday,” Kurt volunteers.

 

Adam frowns. “Your name happens to  _be_ Kurt.”

 

“Not on stage, it’s not.”

 

 _Christ_. He really has lost the plot even more than he realized, hasn’t he? But where can he even begin? Even he doesn’t know the whole story.

 

What he does know is bad enough. And as much as this will hurt…

 

What if Kurt and Blaine can help him make any sense of it? Certainly holding it to himself has helped nothing. And if he’s to break his silence with anyone, there are no two people more fitting.

 

So he closes his eyes and dives in. “Well. The last time I saw or spoke to Sebastian...we had an amazing night together, and the next morning we went out to breakfast...and we ran into Greg and his husband.”

 

“Husband!” The generous mouthful of Chardonnay that Kurt has just taken into his mouth only narrowly misses being spat across the room. At the last second he swallows it down and instantly goes into a red-faced coughing fit, leading Blaine to scramble up and over to rub his back until he can breathe again. Cheeks still pink, Kurt stares with eyes as wide as their dinner plates. “Say that again?”

  
“Husband.” Adam can only shrug. It probably looks a lot more casual than he feels. “We ran into them at the diner we’d gone to, and Sebastian just...he froze. He just froze and he looked so  _awful_ , and it  _was_ really awful, and...and then he ran out.”

 

“And you went after him, right?” Kurt’s eyes are still huge over the rim of his wine glass as he raises it for another, more moderate sip.

 

“Of course I went after him.” It comes out as more of an angry bark than Adam had intended, but he’s been reliving the worst morning of his life over and over without relief for two weeks and now he has to actually re-enact it. Which, yes, this could be helpful and cathartic and maybe Kurt and Blaine will have some kind of good advice or insight but that doesn’t make this hurt any less at fucking  _all_. “I went after him and…”

  
“And…” Blaine and Kurt look like they’re both bracing themselves for the worst. Well, they probably are well acquainted with the worst Sebastian can dish out. Right now, Adam wishes he’d listened to Kurt all those weeks ago. It wouldn't have changed a single thing he'd done, but at least he might have been  _prepared_.

  
He feels like a prize idiot. Hindsight is most unwelcomely 20/20.

  
“And...he let me have it. Told me to get lost, basically. That he was doing me a favor, that we should never have happened…” His stomach is full of rusty nails and tinfoil. “Well. Essentially, Kurt, when you told me I had no idea what Sebastian was capable of saying when he panicked, I wish now I’d taken that more completely to heart.”

 

Kurt’s face falls. “I didn't want to be right.”

  
“I know you didn't.” Adam pours the rest of his wine down his throat. “I should've paid better attention anyway, as it turns out.”

  
His friends don't seem to know what to say to that, and he doesn't feel like going on just now. So they all sit in silence for a while, refilling their glasses and resuming dinner, but Adam can hear Kurt ticking the thoughts over in his head. And sure enough, when the silence is broken, it’s Kurt whose voice is the first heard. “It’s weird, though,” he mutters through a mouthful of pasta.

 

“What is?” Adam’s not really eating, just poking at his plate. He’s hoping they don’t notice.

 

No such luck. “Eat,” Kurt demands, pointing his fork as if he’s prepared to use it offensively. He chews the last of his bite and goes on. "This whole thing. It's just so  _weird_. It has always  _been_ weird, from the first day Sebastian met Greg.” He pauses, clearly searching for words, swaying his fork back and forth while he thinks. "Honestly, Adam. Truth time. We've never told you but...this Sebastian? He's not the same Sebastian we've known since high school."

  
That’s worth a frown. It looks like he actually is going to get some of the insight he’d hoped for, but it’s not starting out making much sense. “What do you mean?”

  
“Don’t get us wrong.” Blaine is painfully earnest as he leans forward. “This Sebastian - your Sebastian - when he’s being, you know, sane, we like him a lot. Not that we ever didn’t like him -”

  
“Oh, there was a time I didn’t like him, and I don’t think your parents have ever forgiven him for -”

  
“Kurt. Not now.” Blaine cuts his boyfriend off with a glare before turning his attention back to Adam. “In a nutshell, your Sebastian -”

  
“What is this  _my_ Sebastian business?” He’d laugh if it weren’t so frustrating. “Are you saying he’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

  
Blaine wobbles his hands like he’s balancing objects in them. “It’s not that far off, sort of.”

  
Okay, now Adam does laugh. “That’s ludicrous.”

  
“You are literally the second relationship he has ever had in his life,” Kurt says, blunt and to the point.

  
 _What?_ Adam is stunned. “I...but...no. He’s 25.” He knows age is a ridiculous argument but...well, really. Really?

 

“And Greg, wonderful Greg whom we all loved just like crazy -” Kurt’s gritted teeth give the lie to the sentiment. “Greg was his first boyfriend. If you can call whatever they had a relationship, if you can call Greg a boyfriend. Greg was definitely the first long term thing Sebastian’s ever, ever been in.”

  
His face is as sober and solemn as Adam has ever seen it, all traces of puckish mischief flown quite entirely away, and, oh,  _god_ , he  _means_ it.

  
Blaine picks up the thread while Adam scrambles to process it. “Before Greg, before you… Okay. In high school he hit on me like gangbusters. I mean coming on like a freight train, not taking no for an answer, pissing Kurt  _off_ hitting on me. He slept his way through half of central Ohio’s gay college students and probably a lot of the straight ones, too – he was that confident. Charming, when he wanted or needed to be.”

  
“In college no one ever knew what hit them,” Kurt continues. “We'd go up to New Haven for weekend party visits and it was like watching a series of surgical strikes. He never, ever slept alone and never with the same guy twice."

 

"In grad school he calmed down, kind of - I think the work load helped with that.” Blaine is beginning to look like he regrets helping to open this Pandora’s Box, and Adam almost wishes they hadn’t, himself. Nothing he’s hearing squares with what he knows of the Sebastian he loves. But he can’t help but listen, almost spellbound, as Blaine goes on. “Mostly he came up here from Philly instead of us visiting him, but we'd still go out and he'd still only spend about half his Saturday nights sleeping on our couch or with us."

 

Adam knows his eyes are huge. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  
"Because he was happy with you," Blaine said simply. "And him actually being happy is a lot better than the manic fake happy we saw a lot of the time when he was with Greg, so we didn't...there didn't seem to be much point in telling you that he used to be a serial one night stand kind of guy and, frankly, a douchebag. I love him, but seriously. He...could be a real jerk."

  
Okay. This is a lot. Adam gets up to go in search of another bottle of wine, trying to ignore the feeling of Kurt and Blaine’s eyes on his back.  _I hadn’t quite entirely expected this_.

  
He doesn’t mind it at all, obviously - he has his own past, though perhaps not  _quite_ as rakish - but it’s still not completely slotting into place. Although...sometimes...certain mannerisms and memories...Adam can see how it might have been a thing. Remembering the night with Kurt and Blaine at Laser, he can match up traces of this devil may care Sebastian with the closed off, cautious Sebastian he knows. Only traces, but it makes it a little less incomprehensible in places.

  
What it doesn't do is explain their situation now. Locating a fresh bottle of Chardonnay in the refrigerator, Adam pops the cork and refills his glass. He has to take a nerve-calming swallow before he can breathe in and move on, turning to face his friends. “And then?”

 

"And then he met Greg on one of those weekend visits,” Blaine says, with a reluctance clear as glass.

  
"And that's when things got weird,” Kurt finishes, getting up to put his plate in the sink. He reaches for the wine, but Adam keeps a death grip on the neck of the bottle. Stepping back, Kurt raises his hands in a gesture of surrender and gets a third bottle out.

  
Adam waits for Kurt to go on, but Kurt fiddles around with the new bottle, uncorking it, refilling his glass, puttering over to refill Blaine’s. When he ducks into the refrigerator to pull out the Amaretto apple pie, Adam loses patience. “Weird  _how_ , dammit?”

  
Kurt looks surprised, pausing in the act of pulling a pie server out of a drawer. "Well, Greg was around all the time all of a sudden. Which was new. Very, very new.”

  
“So?”

  
“I mean  _all of the time_ ,” Kurt emphasizes. “If Sebastian wasn't talking about him, he was with him. All the time. At first we just assumed the sex was amazing."

  
“But it went on. And on. And there was  _no one else_ , Adam.” Again, Blaine’s eyes are wide and earnest. “You really, really have no idea how unusual that was for Sebastian at the time. I mean - here’s the biggest thing. Sebastian had a lot of job offers when he graduated from Wharton, but he picked the lowest salaried offer just because it was here and...well.” He exchanges glances with Kurt. “Let’s say we don’t think our long friendship was the only or even the main reason for that choice.”

 

“And you didn’t like it.” He waves away the plate of pie Kurt offers him. Food is still not high on Adam’s list of priorities this evening. “Right?”

  
Kurt looks at him like he’s crazy. “Well, of course we didn’t like it. Greg’s a  _dick_.”

  
 _Give me strength._ “I had guessed that much from the first night Sebastian and I were together. Is there a point to this very long story?” Maybe he wasn’t going to get as much insight out of this as he’d hoped.

  
Around the handle of the pie server, Kurt’s knuckles whiten. “The entire story  _is_ the point. Have you not been listening?”

  
Blaine jumps up from the couch at the sound of the edge that has entered Kurt’s voice, coming to interpose himself between the two of them, an island of calm as he rubs Kurt’s arm and keeps a steady gaze on Adam. “We’re saying Sebastian changed while he was with Greg. Just...we had to sit there and watch him get  _obsessed_. We still don’t know why - he wouldn’t talk about it. But it was confusing for everyone that knew him, because honestly, when they were together, they didn’t even seem to  _like_ each other much.”

 

“And after a while...he disappeared.” His fingers relax and Kurt sets the pie server aside. “Adam, until that day he ran into Blaine at Sweets, we hadn’t seen Sebastian in months. As near as we can tell, no one had. Except for you.”

 

“The last we saw of him, Kurt was trying to talk to Sebastian about Greg but…” Blaine shrugs, helpless. “Well, they’ve always been really good at pushing each others’ buttons. Sebastian exploded, and Sebastian walked.”

 

“Hence the warning.” Adam has to squeeze his eyes shut against the endless memory of Sebastian walking away from  _him_. “So that much, at least, hasn’t changed.”

  
Kurt’s fingers catch the falling wine glass as Adam’s fingers loosen around it, but Adam doesn’t open his eyes. in the next instant, the glass is replaced by the comforting warm squeeze of Kurt’s hand. “Adam. What did he  _say_ to you?”

  
 "I told you.”

 

“No. The part you aren’t telling us.”

 

 _The part I’ll never not hear again, you mean_. “I’d rather not.”

  
Since Kurt’s already holding Adam’s right hand, he assumes it’s Blaine that takes the wine bottle out of his left and replaces it with his own hand. “Adam.”

 

 _Glass on my tongue._ “He asked me if I had thought I could fix him.”

  
A sharp ache goes through his right hand when Kurt squeezes it in shock. “Which of course you never did.”

  
 _Laughable._ “Actually, which of course I  _did_ think, in a way, that's the hell of it.” Adam manages to pry his eyes open against the hurt even thinking about this stabs through his head. “I mean, isn't that what I always do?”

 

“You love him,” Blaine tries to say, but Adam ignores him, focusing on Kurt. He knows exactly why those words haunt him, why that moment more than any other loops through his head, and the one other person who would understand is right in front of him.

 

“You would know, Kurt, better than anyone. Wouldn’t you? You would know how I tried to help. that I did try to fix things. How I didn't really push about things that weren't quite right even though we both knew about them. Right?” Kurt’s eyes slip away, his cheeks reddening. Adam’s chuckle is dark as he shakes his head. “You’d think I would have learned, but no...I did it again. Tried to make everything better. Bloody fucking arrogant of me, as usual, yet  _again_.”

 

“This isn’t like our situation was at all, Adam -” Kurt stops when Adam shakes his head, shakes violently despite how it makes his head ache all the more.

  
“No, it’s worse, because this time I should have known better, shouldn’t I? Or is it worse because I  _did_  know better and I  _still_ ignored it?”  _Hell is hindsight and clarity_. “I didn’t push, I didn’t ask anymore after a while - I knew something was wrong from the start, but I didn’t want to scare him off. I was that far gone from moment one.”

 

Both of them are wide-eyed, startled and lost with not knowing what to tell him. He can’t help but keep laughing bitterly as he goes on, untangling his fingers from Kurt’s so he can reclaim his glass and take a long, long, long but not long enough swallow of wine to drain the glass.

 

“I never asked if he _wanted_ me to help. Not once. I just thought that with time we could work together to heal whatever had been broken but of course I had no idea how deep the wound really went - and maybe I didn't want to.” Into his glass goes the last of the second bottle. “And maybe it was really bloody selfish of me to think I was being magnanimous and generous and helpful to this poor broken soul, don’t you think?”

 

“Stop it.” Kurt tries to take the glass again, but Adam pulls back, startled when he over balances and stumbles back a step, two steps, and then crashes to the floor in a heap.  _Fuck_.

 

In a flash, his friends are down on the floor with him, surrounding him with embracing arms and their non-judging love while he rests his head on Blaine’s shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut again, still determined not to let a single tear fall. “It’s not like when you came back to New York engaged out of nowhere,” he mumbles, marveling a little at how he’d ever thought  _that_ was painful. It wasn’t fun, he’d been hurt and angry at Kurt for weeks, but it was nothing, nothing, nothing next to how angry he is at himself now, or how much he misses Sebastian…

 

“You didn’t do the wrong thing,” Blaine whispers into his ear. “You love him. You weren’t arrogant or selfish - you were  _you_ , you  _were_ generous and loving and exactly what he needed - you’re good for each other, I promise, Adam, you fit, and this is just...it’s going to be okay - it will be -”

 

They get the wine glass out of his hand again and just hold him while he shakes and listens to their reassurances, warm whispers and warmer embraces wrapping him in caring and support and soothing his hurt and anger away.

 

When Kurt’s lips touch the curve of his neck, when Blaine holds his face in his and kisses him with a sweet gentle softness, he falls into it for a second, dips into the further comfort they offer and relaxes for a moment - and it’s so tempting. It would be easy to fall into the hands waiting to catch and hold him, to let someone take care of him for once -

  
But no. It would be more salt than balm at this point, reminding him too much of what Sebastian won’t let him do or be.

 

"Thank you both," he says, pulling away to brush kisses across Kurt's, then Blaine's lips in turn. “Thank you.”

 

Blaine’s smile is almost a little sad. “That’s a no, isn’t it?”

  
"I think it would be best if I tried to just sleep." For the first time in too long, he almost looks forward to it. Perhaps tonight, in the company of people who love him, sleep can cease being the burden it had become. “It has been something of a long day.”

  
“I’m going to offer you an Ambien -” Kurt begins. Adam can't help but chuckle while he struggles to his feet.

 

“And I am going to turn it down.” He gives Kurt's hand a squeeze before hauling his friend to his feet. "Chamomile tea will suffice."

 

As Kurt bustles off to prepare the tea, Blaine stands up and leans to rest his head on Adam's arm. "You'll sleep in the bed with us, though."

 

That, Adam can accept, and he does, with the fervent hope that the comfort of affection can keep the bad dreams away. That in the warmth of being nestled between warm bodies and being cradled within hearts that do not trip a broken beat, he can find, however momentary, a haven of peace.

 

He can only wish that somehow, Sebastian could find the same...

 


	25. Capsized

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this chapter gets a very little bit darker than usual and involves a possibly distressing moment during a drunken sexual situation.

"Two more.”

The bartender’s eyebrow goes up, hand stilling in the act of mopping up a puddle of melted ice on the bar top. “No.”

With determined focus and a few bleary blinks, Sebastian can just about merge the bartender and his twin back into the single being he’d been until about three tequila slammers ago. “I want two more.”

“And I’m not serving you any more alcohol. I’ll give you water - you can have plain, you can have sparkling, I’ll put a lemon slice in it, whatever.” A quick motion makes the two - four? - empty shot glasses in front of Sebastian disappear. “But you’re cut off from alcohol.”

Sebastian fumbles for his wallet. “I have money.”

A glass of seltzer with lemon appears in front of him. “Doesn’t matter, buddy.”

He wants to be angry. Wants to throw the water into the bartender’s face -

(faces? so far there’s still two of them...)

\- and get himself dragged out of Laser kicking and punching, making a scene, letting profanity rip its way out of his throat to give vent to the anger and frustration seething through his veins. He wants to hit someone, something, wants blood and scraped skin and the dull ache of bruises.

The skin he wears is too tight for everything it has to contain.

But Sebastian’s life at the moment is a case of the flesh is crawling while the spirit is exhausted. He has no energy to  _be_ angry, has nothing but the motivation to sit in his own self-loathing and think of ways to numb how much everything hurts.

In two weeks of trying, he’s done nothing but fail.

After leaving Adam standing shocked and speechless on Delancey Street, Sebastian had gone straight to his apartment and hadn’t emerged more than once for the entirety of a week.

Work was taken care of by calling in sick. “Bronchitis,” he’d croaked into the phone, voice ravaged by taking up smoking again for the first time in a year. It lent a certain verisimilitude to the excuse, which meant that no one questioned him on it.

Living in New York City meant a steady supply of food was a mere phone call away, not that he felt like eating much of the time. A carton of cigarettes and three bottles of Cuervo Especial Silver purchased early on in his hibernation helped see him through the better part of seven nights of lying on his living room floor in Adam’s t-shirt and boxers, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think.

The next Saturday he cleaned his apartment, went out and did laundry, sat down at his computer to complete his work on the Sweets photographs, sent them to Sarita and - because he'd spent two hours feeling his heart contract sharply whenever a photo of Adam came up and because by now he was out of his own supply of Cuervo - then went out to Laser and got  _astoundingly_ drunk.

The last of which he has repeated every night this week.

He could, of course, buy a fresh supply of alcohol to keep at home. He doesn't have to go out. His office is a short bus ride away from his apartment and there's a liquor store near his building, there's no real reason he has to go out except -

\- just drinking isn't enough to erase the last look he'd seen on Adam's face.

He had  _tried_.

Hurt. Shock. Bewilderment. Nothing Sebastian had ever wanted to put there, nothing that Adam deserved, but everything that reminded Sebastian that he was not anywhere near good enough for what Adam was offering, had given him. No one who caused that kind of pain out of their own selfish needs could ever be good enough for it.

After all, he hadn't even been good enough for Greg - to love and be loved by Adam was a fever dream, a fantasy, the sun by which he’d flown too near.

Pushing the memories as far away as he can manage, Sebastian gets up from the bar, ignoring the seltzer water in favor of circling the dance floor, peering through the lasers, prowling the perimeter, eyes skimming over the men on offer. It’s a Saturday night in Manhattan; he can slip into his old self as easily as changing clothes, and the possibilities range out before him, ripe for the picking. He could have any of them - for the night. Not even that long, if he prefers.

Temporary, transient, fleeting and anonymous. Once upon a time those had been his words to live by. Time to reclaim them - there's a safety in their impermanence, in how his heart never has to be on the line. Rejection isn't the potential weapon in this situation that it could be in Adam's hands, that it was in Greg's.

_And it's better that way_ , he reminds himself, gritting his teeth against the forced sincerity of the thought and gazing with more focus at the dance floor.

His attention is caught when lights strobe off of a gleaming, shirtless stretch of golden tanned skin. It’s held when eyes like liquid night meet his gaze and a wicked smirk full of promises tilts up a generous mouth.

The guy is practically glued to a sexy Latin boy with fluid hips and a tight body, but he turns away easily enough when Sebastian pushes through the crowd and slides a hand up his arm. Words aren’t needed; Sebastian makes sure his body language promises where the hot Latino was only teasing, slipping his hands under the waistband of his dance partner’s jeans, letting his fingers grip and knead at an ass so tight it -

“ _Everyone’s watching.”_

“ _Don’t care. Want you...we didn’t finish in the shower...”_

“ _Because we told Kurt and Blaine we’d meet them at - oh.”_

“ _Come on, babe, please, my place isn’t far.”_

“ _It would be...ah...rude...we’ve hardly seen...mmm...you make it...oh...difficult to say no…”_

Sebastian forces his eyes open and the memory away - he’s getting good at shoving the memories back under the surface of his consciousness, but he has to do it so  _much_ , it’s as if everything reminds him of Adam - returning the smirk of the stranger whose ass is literally in his hands. They’re so close, there’s no mistaking the guy’s hard-on as it grinds against Sebastian’s, short-circuiting his pleasure receptors and wiping out everything but  _want_.

Hopeless to try for conversation with remixed Panic! At The Disco nearly rupturing the speakers, so -  _Upstairs?_ he mouths with a tilt of his head towards the second floor mezzanine.

A smile is the only answer he gets, but that’s okay - it’s also the only answer he needs. After a week of this, he is practiced once more in the pickup, in the silent question, in reading the responses.  _Like riding a bicycle_ , he thinks, and ignores how this churns in his stomach with too much tequila and no dinner to speak of.

Hand in hand they thread their way through the undulating mass of dancers and up the stairs to the second floor alcoves. Saturday means most of them are occupied - couples, trios, fucking, handjobs, nearly every possible permutation of bodies that can fit in the snug hookup spaces are hard at work pursuing as many illicit acts of sexual gratification as can be managed in as short a time as possible.

There’s one alcove available, and Sebastian snatches it out from under the nose of a disgruntled twink who’d been about to drag what looked like a virtual clone of himself into the dark little nook. The apologetic smile Sebastian tosses over his shoulder as he hustles his hookup into the alcove is far from sincere, and the twink twins look like they want to start shit over it, but when his selected stranger pushes him down on the bench inside and straddles his lap, he doesn’t really care.

The only thing that matters right now is erasing Adam.

Dark eyes glitter in the dim backlighting of the alcove as his hookup of choice eyes him up and down, seeming to take his measure. He appears to like what he sees, maybe - he licks his lips and smiles before speaking for the first time. “Want me to blow you?”

It takes all of Sebastian’s self control to not wince away from this. Not a good start. The voice is all wrong, the words crude, the offer too direct. Sebastian tries to ignore his distaste, tries to remember that perfunctory, meaningless sexual gratification works like this, makes himself remember that there was a time he liked it and thought it was fun.

That doesn’t mean that he can’t have  _some_ standards, however. “Don’t talk,” Sebastian orders, tilting his head back against the wall and pulling the guy’s head down into a sloppy kiss. He’s found it’s an effective way to shut people up and get on with the fucking around.

But this, too, is wrong, their mouths not quite lining up, too much spit, too much tongue, too much of the taste of Southern Comfort. The guy is going after Sebastian’s tonsils with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, groaning like a D-grade porn star into Sebastian’s mouth. It’s not hot, it is not even in the general vicinity of hot. Sebastian feels his dick slowly flagging and doesn’t think about the  _real_  reason why.  _Clearly I did not pick the best option on the floor...fuck it, I’m not psychic._

There’s got to be a way to rescue this. Tonight he is going to make this happen. Sebastian nudges at the guy and wriggles up until he’s on his knees on the bench. “Like this.” He leans forward to lick up the guy’s neck before biting gently down on the taut cord of muscle at the curve, making his hookup shudder and gasp. He tries his best not to think when he wedges his hand down a stranger’s jeans, tries not to flinch away from what he finds there. It’s  _all_ wrong, nothing fits, nothing’s right -

“Yeah, I can do that,” the guy breathes when Sebastian’s hand closes around his cock. “You like that, I can do that - ” He fumbles at Sebastian’s fly, tucks his head down into the crook of Sebastian’s neck and starts mouthing at it -

_No._ He can’t do this.

“Stop. Fuck.” It’s the wrong lips on his neck, the wrong hand trying to shove its way down into his jeans, even the breathing is wrong, wrong, all of it is just fucking not what he wants and it's too much  _wrong_  to handle, just like it always is. “Fucking - get  _off_ me.”

“What the shit, man?” The guy backs off with a shove that makes Sebastian’s head thump against the fabric covered wall and for a second he sees stars. “You don’t want this? You brought me in here, you dick.”

“It’s not - no -” Between the tequila and the bump to the head, his thoughts are choppy waters, impossible to navigate. “I thought - I can’t -”

The guy squares up his shoulders, rolls his head to crack his neck. “So we’re not fucking doing this? Are you fucking kidding me?”

His heart’s in his throat in that moment, but Sebastian presses on. “Get out,” he chokes, cupping the back of his head in his palm and blinking away tears that cover every type of pain he’s felt in the last week. If he lets them fall, they could flood the building.

“Fine, whatever. I don’t have time for this. Bye, asshole.” Shoving his way out of the alcove, the stranger is gone, mumbling, "Fucking cocktease," and disappearing into the crowd before the curtains even swing shut. Sebastian closes his eyes and leans his head against the alcove wall with care, pain swirling in bright colors against the dark of his eyelids.

He keeps failing. Over and over and over, he tries so hard to erase Adam and he fails.

It’s not just Adam’s face he wants to erase. It’s every touch, every golden warm memory, every gentle word and generous gesture that he needs gone. He wants the toxic acid of excess and carelessness to eat away at every bright moment of the last seven months until there’s nothing left that makes him want to go running back.

But alcohol isn’t wiping out the memories, and whenever someone touches him it's like they're only covering Adam's handprints - they can't get through, their touch doesn’t sink in. He feels only Adam's touch, the hands of strangers sitting out of place on the stretched-thin surface of his skin. Lips don’t fit, no one sounds right, and it’s too much to bear to think about how  _wrong_ all of them have tasted...

He wants Adam, and only Adam, but he  _can't_ , he just can't, there’s too much to risk. If just  _thinking_ he was in love could tear him into pieces, he doesn't want to know the damage real love could do if he lets it.

He doesn't know if he could survive it going wrong.

Opening his eyes, Sebastian winces away from the strobes flashing in through the cracks of the curtains. He’d hit the back wall harder than he thought when his spurned hookup shoved him; he’s going to have the mother of all hangovers in the morning.

And yet - it’s still not going to hurt worse than not having Adam.

Sebastian shoves himself to his feet and pushes through the curtains, stumbling out of the alcove into the upstairs crowd. There’s cheers and jeering around him, but he ignores all of it, focuses on getting himself down the stairs and out the door into the humid Manhattan night.

Some color of this has gone down every single awful night this week - a couple of the guys took his failure with grace, squeezing his hand and making him think they might understand everything going wrong in his life. Still others were slightly less charitable, glaring at him and scoffing as they shoved out of the alcove like they couldn’t get away fast enough. One kept trying to turn his choked out  _no_  into a  _yes_ , offering drinks and a slimy persuasion that finally sent him fleeing for home to huddle under the steaming hot spray of his shower for over an hour.

And then there was tonight.

_This isn’t working._ Can he do nothing right? He used to be so good at fucking up, at letting himself fall into his bad decisions and enjoy the ride, never caring who got hurt because none of it was permanent, right?

He wonders now with no little sense of self-loathing what sort of wreckage he’d left in his own wake. It had to have been substantial for him to have earned the karmic bitchslap that was Gregory Arata. And then the extra bonus of being unable to let go of Adam, having to carry around all of the good memories and the one final heartwrenching image of Adam’s face - so hurt, so confused, and yet somehow still completely loving and full of worry for  _Sebastian_. Despite all of the horrible words tumbling out of Sebastian’s mouth.

Sebastian groans and all but collapses under the weight of it to sit down on the curb, swimming head cradled in his hands. Manhattan heaves and breathes all around him, lights and car horns and the murmurs of passing pedestrians, a city that is alive every hour of every day and right now he would give his entire world for it to fall silent for one second so that he could find one clear thought in his aching head.

Any thought other than  _If I weren’t such a coward, I could go back to him._

Once when he was at Yale, Kurt and Blaine had had some kind of fight and the next thing Sebastian knew, Kurt had hopped a train and was pacing the tiny length of Sebastian’s tiny dorm room, ranting and raving and pouring an entire bottle of questionable quality wine down his throat. Hours and  _hours_ of griping ensued, Sebastian so unable to get in a word edgewise that he’d eventually given up and gone back to his Econ homework, letting Kurt bitch himself out.

“Love conquers all,” Kurt had eventually slurred, flopped on his back and sprawled out over Sebastian’s bed, empty wine bottle dangling from his fingers.

Sebastian had gotten deep back into his homework by then, and it took a minute for the sudden silence to capture his attention. “Say what?”

“Love conquers all,” Kurt had repeated, pushing up to sitting and cradling the bottle in his arms. “‘M so pissed at Blaine right now, right, so pissed I came up here to talk to you and he doesn’t even know I left.”

“I texted him,” Sebastian had replied dryly, but Kurt ignored him.

“But is all stupid, right, because we  _love_ each other. I jus’ needed to get away for a lil bit. Clear my head.”

Sebastian had felt his eyebrows shoot up with impressive force. “And you thought a full bottle of four dollar Merlot would  _help_ with that?”

“Shut up.” Waving the bottle around in what Sebastian guessed was some attempt at a threatening manner, Kurt had leaned forward and glared. “Whatever the hell we were fightin’ about -”

“Your eventual wedding date.  _Again_.”

“ - it doesn’t matter b’cause I love Blaine and he loves me and tha’s the important thing and love conquers all.” The bottle had clunked to the floor then as Kurt passed out and flopped backwards, in that order, consigning Sebastian to a night of trying to fit two tall people - one of them dead-weight drunk and prone to kicking - into a single dorm room bed.

He hasn’t ever forgotten that night - partly because the videos he’d shot were excellent blackmail material but also because Kurt’s words had stuck with him, even if he’d kind of snorted and dismissed them at the time because, haha, love, when would he ever have any time or desire for that?

_Love conquers all_. “Love conquers  _some_ ,” he grumbles, pressing the heels of his hands against eyes that seem to have developed a slow, damp leak. Because it doesn’t matter now that he’s found both time and desire for love, does it? His fingers are too clumsy to hold it, his heart too walled up behind fear to let it in, his entire existence completely undeserving of it. He’d taken the leap, jumped as hard as he could, and missed the other side of the canyon by  _that much_.

Love can’t conquer  _him_. He won’t let it.

Sebastian struggles back to his feet, brushing off his jeans and lighting a cigarette as he resumes his stumble homeward. His apartment will be dark, his bed empty, his heart aching around its hollowed out center. He tries for the millionth time to convince himself that it’s best that way, that pancakes and mellow jazz and laughter and warm, sweet, slow sex on a Sunday morning are nothing but stepping stones paving the way to his own ruin.

_This is not that..._

_...but this could become that._

_Love is just a weakness_.

But god help him, there is a part of him that has never wanted so much to give in to weakness in his entire life, it's shouting louder all the time and he can't seem to figure out how to drown it out.


	26. Treading Water

In the morning when Adam wakes up, he’s alone in Kurt and Blaine’s bed.

He shoves himself up to sitting and takes stock. He feels slightly hungover. The apartment is filled with the smell of French toast and cooking ham. Blaine is at the kitchen table, sipping at a cup of coffee as he concentrates on some sort of paperwork. Kurt, at the stove, flips something in a skillet. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he sings out when he catches sight of Adam sitting up. “Monte Cristos for breakfast sound good?”

“They sound incredible,” Adam replies with gratitude, crawling out from under the sheets to sit on the side of the bed and yawn. Really, he’d like to stay right where he is until he feels completely better and all human once again, but Kurt’s Monte Cristos have too powerful an allure to deny. “And the coffee smells fantastic.”

“Fresh ground French Vanilla medium roast.” Blaine lifts the coffee pot from the table warmer and shakes it, just a little. “Come and get it.”

Adam yawns again, runs his hands through his hair and ruffles it up a little, wonders at how long actually waking up is taking. He can usually bounce right out of bed; he must have slept quite soundly last night in the wake of his catharsis. “I will in a moment. I seem to be having a little trouble waking u…” Yet another yawn interrupts him, and he’s tempted by the silky high thread count sheets and plush pillows to just go back to sleep.

“Um...yes.” When Adam blinks his eyes back open after the yawn, it’s to see Kurt looking slightly guilty and Blaine glaring at his fiancé in a way that promises a fairly epic argument once Adam is out of the picture. Ignoring the glare, Kurt plasters on a winning smile and continues. “So it may have been a mistake to put liquid melatonin in your chamomile tea after you drank an entire bottle of Chardonnay?”

That does wake Adam up a bit more. “You  _drugged_ me?”

“A little! Well, it would have been a little without the wine." Kurt, face by now all over guilt, holds out a plate heaped high with the largest Monte Cristo Adam has ever seen. "I kind of forgot to take that into account because I hadn’t had a whole lot less wine than you.” His entire face goes red. “I felt bad for overdoing it. That's why I'm making you breakfast. Well. Brunch, I guess."

Adam’s hands clench right up into fists as he takes a very deep breath. “Brunch.”

"You...kind of slept for over twelve hours. It's after noon don’t kill me I made you food," Kurt squeaks, holding the plate of brunch up like a shield.

Part of him does want to be at least a  _little_ angry. It’s dirty pool, drugging people without their knowledge, even if the drug in question is a natural supplement. Or whatever it is.

 _Point_ : drugged to sleep. Not entirely cool.

However. That twelve plus hour coma had been a) twelve plus hours and b) dreamless. These are considerable points in Kurt’s favor, and that’s  _before_  Adam adds in the factor of very delicious and very bad for everyone breakfast food. Well, brunch food.  _I cannot believe it is after noon_. But a glance at the clock confirms it - in fact, it is creeping on towards one.

_Well. What else did I have to do today? And it’s nice to feel rested again…_

“All right,” Adam says, relenting. “You’re forgiven. With reservations, but forgiven.”

“Yay!” Kurt bounces in place a little, careful not to upend the plate in his hands. Placing it on a tray, he skips into the bedroom and plops down on the bed, motioning for Adam to climb back in. “Then you can have breakfast in bed. Don’t spill, please. That bedding is Egyptian cotton.”

“Oh, spill if you have to. It would serve him right.” Blaine sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry at his huffing fiancé, strolling in with a fresh cup of coffee that he puts on the tray. “Don’t think you’re off the hook with me, Kurt - I swear to god, I am locking up your narcotics stash.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “One bottle of Ambien and some liquid melatonin do not a stash make.”

“You’re still a menace.” But the admonishment is accompanied by a smile and a kiss to Kurt’s forehead, a gesture so sweet and intimate that Adam has to look away and focus on his Monte Cristo, breathing slow and careful as Blaine settles down onto the bed next to Kurt. “So, Adam, you are going to stay with us at least one more night, right? I mean, since you and Kurt don’t have rehearsal until tomorrow.”

“Yeah…” Adam toys with his knife and fork while he thinks. If he’s really truthful, he very much does like the idea of not being alone right now, as much as he had opposed it just yesterday. Going back to his lonely, empty, memory filled apartment doesn’t really appeal anymore, not after spending a night in the literal embrace of friends offering comfort. Having spilled out all of his anger and sadness to them, he is inclined to accept more of that sort of help - minus the drugging aspect of it all, at least. “That sounds fine to me. Did you two have any plans?”

Blaine exchanges glances at Kurt. "My idea was to stay inside, chill out on the couch and watch terrible movies."

Not a bad plan. Has merit. Adam takes a long sip of excellent coffee and seriously considers it.

Until Kurt claps his hands sharply to catch everyone's attention. “Or!” He starts to bounce a little on the bed, beaming. “Blaine actually has to finish his lesson plans for the upcoming school year and the movie thing would be him procrastinating  _which_ he asked me not to let him do since he does have that inservice tomorrow, but you and I could go look at…” He clasps his hands under his chin and all but squeals the last word. “Puppies!”

Right. That was unexpected. “Puppies? Kurt…” It's not that Adam doesn't like dogs. He grew up with dogs. He just doesn't quite understand the point of them today. Unless the point is simply that puppies are cute.

Knowing Kurt, actually, that probably  _is_ exactly and entirely the point. And it is not a bad point, come to think.

Kurt's bright face and animated gestures would seem to bear the cuteness point out. “No, hear me out. Remember my friend Elliott Gilbert?”

Adam has to think about this between bites of delicious breakfast. Brunch. Whatever. In a minute or two, he has it. “From your old band, yes. The fellow with the excellent taste in a first name.”

By now Kurt is rather wiggling like a puppy himself. “His cousin Stella breeds Yorkies. They live a couple of blocks away and asks us to help out cuddling and holding the puppies, to get them used to humans and being handled. And who doesn’t want to play with puppies?” He grins. “She has a litter right now that we've been visiting for weeks. And I think you could use some puppy cuddles right now, Adam.”

Yes. The boundless adorableness of puppies was indeed the point. And as Adam eats his breakfast - brunch! - and considers said point, he can't come up with a single reason why he wouldn't want to go play with puppies right now. "Actually, that does sound rather nice."

Kurt flashes Blaine a smirk of triumph. "Told you I wouldn't let you get out of doing your work."

"I did ask for it," Blaine sighs, looking more than a little disappointed. "Damn."

Sticking his tongue out in a retaliatory raspberry, Kurt hauls ass off the bed and disappears into the bathroom with a little ‘woo!’ that makes Adam and Blaine chuckle and shake their heads in unison. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you can't come with us," Adam says, putting down his utensils so he can reach over and pat Blaine on the knee. "It seems unfair. Everyone deserves a puppy break."

Blaine scoots further up on the bed and shrugs as he crosses his legs underneath himself. "Well, the school year is coming and I am not ready, and Kurt's right - I asked him to make sure I don't procrastinate, even for you." They exchange smiles for a moment before Blaine's drops off and he looks apologetic. "Listen. I am...really sorry about the doping you to sleep thing, Adam."

"Oh, no harm done in the end, really," Adam yawns. "I did need the sleep." Though he does hope the yawning stops soon. It's getting exhausting. He gulps down half his cup of coffee in hopes that it will help shake off the lingering foggy traces.

Blaine still looks apologetic. "And I'm also sorry because I think Kurt and I were a little hard on Sebastian last night. We didn’t mean to be." He bites his lip and worries at it a little. "We were only trying to get across that he’d changed and it worried us...we didn’t mean for it to sound like he was a bad person.”

“I know that, Blaine." Adam is surprised that his friend thinks it even need explaining, wonders where Blaine's mind is with this. "I wouldn’t have believed it if you had been trying otherwise. Don’t worry, Blaine. We’ve all been different people when we’re younger in some way. Sebastian sleeping around doesn’t bother me. It would be hypocritical if it did, frankly.”

“Good.” Blaine pauses. “He is a good person though. Genuinely. But he doesn’t let it show very often with most people and I'm not sure he really believes it.”

"All I ever saw of him was a good person who’d been through a hard time,” Adam replies, perhaps a bit more sharply than strictly necessary. “For all the good  _that_ did. No, Blaine. You don’t have to convince me.”

Blaine sits back, fingers plucking anxiously at the duvet. "Can I convince you to go try and talk to him again?"

It takes everything Adam has not to put his hand on his chest, over where it feels like his heart is trying to turn somersaults. He has to breathe in deep again, closing his eyes. "Not yet, Blaine. I've hurled myself at a brick wall for two weeks. Maybe I need some time to regroup before I decide whether or not to try again."

Blaine looks worried and still more anxious, but nods. "I can understand that. Sorry."

"No need. I mean, I appreciate the advice, actually." And he does. It's not like he knows what he's doing here. Adam is less of a stranger to relationships than Sebastian, but he's never been very  _good_ at them. As he is having driven home to him - over and over, with considerable force - now. "I just think it's been a while since you've been in my position." Adam allows himself a sad smile. "You've been able to forget what it's like, how difficult it can be."

"Not really," is Blaine's surprising answer as he slips off of the bed, his face distantly haunted by memories Adam will never know. "Not entirely."

Adam watches him walk away, a thousand questions on his mind after seeing Blaine close himself off in a moment.  _But what do I do? Is he right? Should I push through and keep trying to reach Sebastian?_

It occurs to him then that the more accurate perspective in this case might...not be Blaine's.  _Better to ask the pursued than the pursuer?_

Yes, probably.

Adam bides his time and keeps his thoughts close, waiting until he and Kurt hit the sidewalk outside to broach the subject. “Kurt?”

“Hmm?” Kurt looks so cheerful and excited, Adam almost hates to do this to him.

 _I need answers._ Best to start soft. “I’ve got a question. Well, I need some advice, but I need to ask you a question.”

“Sure. Anything.” Guilt becomes no easier a burden to bear when Kurt smiles at him, open and inviting and not expecting to get punched in the stomach.

Adam takes a deep breath. “It’s about that time when you and Blaine were broken up.”

And just as he had expected, Kurt’s smile fades, something dark flickering behind his eyes, something that goes with the look that had been on Blaine’s face, something that tells Adam the scars of that incident still run through them years later like barren creekbeds, dry and rock-strewn and hazardous.  _This is a terrible way to repay their kindness._ He feels both horribly desperate and genuinely awful.

Kurt rallies, though, takes his own deep breath and draws his shoulders back. “Okay. I probably should have expected that.”

“I’m sorry.” He is, he really  _is._ “You know, forget it, I didn’t -”

“Adam.” Kurt’s chin lifts, his eyes glittering in a way Adam doesn’t want to think about. “Ask.”

Feeling like he’s twisting a knife in a wound already gone bad, Adam proceeds. “You told me once that...he fought for you. That he fought hard.” It had been one drunken night during their own relationship when Kurt had confessed this, one night when Kurt was still trying to convince himself he  _wanted_ to be over Blaine. "Right?"

It's not a terribly nice memory for either one of them, he knows, isn't any more fun to relive than that last encounter with Sebastian. But Adam is clueless and desperate, so despite the fact that he knows this is hurting Kurt and he hates it - he has to at least try.

Kurt has made his face placid and blank and still, but his eyes still give him away, will always give him away. “I did tell you that. Yes. He did.”

 _Okay. Maybe Blaine really is right._ “How long -”

“Until I asked him to stop.”

It stops Adam in his tracks, leaves him gaping after Kurt until Kurt stops and turns around to wait for Adam to gather his wits back together. He keeps his face that terrible mask of calm, with only the darkness flickering in the depths of his eyes.

When Adam swallows, it’s dry, almost painful.  _What if Sebastian tells me to stop for good?_ “You asked him to stop.”

“I couldn’t  _breathe_ , Adam.” The mask slips a little, anger a brief flash before Kurt locks it down again. “As if my own mind wasn’t bad enough making me always, always, always think about what he’d done, he was calling me. Texting me. Emailing me. Facebooking me. He was always  _there_ , always apologetic, always frantic to make amends.” He twirls his hand in the air as if the action will help him collect his thoughts. “I believed him. I did. But I couldn’t have two minutes alone to figure out what I wanted to do with that. I couldn’t separate missing him and being angry at him and I couldn’t  _breathe_.”

And Adam doesn’t know what to do with  _this_. He scrambles for anything to take away from it. “So I should back off -”

“You should do what  _you_  need to do.” Again that momentary anger, again the quickdraw on locking it down. “It’s  _your_  decision,  _your_ situation. My situation that I had with Blaine isn’t the same thing as your situation with Sebastian.” Kurt shoves his hands into his trouser pockets and starts walking again, forcing Adam to follow along to hear. “Sebastian didn’t cheat on you. You’re not running after him begging forgiveness.” Tilting his chin up, Kurt indicates a brownstone ahead. “That’s Stella’s.”

The conversation is clearly closed to further questioning with that statement, leaving Adam frustrated and annoyed as he follows Kurt up the steps to the front door of the brownstone. He has no clear plan or idea of what to do, how to reach Sebastian, if he even should keep trying to reach Sebastian. Despite what he’s said to Blaine, there’s a part of Adam that’s too afraid of what might happen - or might not happen - if he  _does_ give up.

Lost in his circular thoughts, he runs right into Kurt at the top of the steps. “Sorry.”

Kurt’s hands reach out to take Adam’s, squeezing gently as he smiles with a touch of sadness. “I'm sorry, Adam. I really am. But I can’t really tell you what to do here. It's too different. Does that make any sense?”

 _Yes, but it still puts me back to square one._ But all Adam can do is try not to be disappointed. He’s imposed on Kurt enough, caused enough trouble. “It’s all right. Maybe I...I shouldn’t worry about it right now.” If he says it enough, he’ll believe it, right? “We’ve got the play opening soon, and I’ve got a recipe Theodora wants me to figure out, and just...I’ll figure it out. Right?” Maybe when he pastes on his own smile, it’s transparent and won’t fool Kurt for a minute, but at least he can muster one. That’s something. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

A graceful shrug is both forgiveness and final closure. “So…” Kurt gestures to the door. “Puppies?”

Adam nods. “Puppies.”

Puppies are  _definitely_ in order now.

The tall, broad shouldered fellow dressed all in black who answers Kurt's quick knock is vaguely familiar looking, dark haired and with a ready smile. “Kurt!”

"Elliott!” Effusive hugs are exchanged, Kurt’s hand flapping back to indicate Adam. “You remember my friend Adam?”

“Yeah, the guy with the great middle name.” Elliott flashes that warm smile again, the one that lights up his entire face. It's the characteristic Adam remembers above all others from their previous encounters. “Nice to see you again, been a while.”

Despite his gloom, Adam can’t help but find the smile infectious, a welcome ray of sunshine cutting through his clouded thoughts. “Hello there.”

“You guys come in. Stella’s getting the puppies from the back room.” Stepping back, Elliott ushers them through the door. “Can I get you a drink or anything?”

“Best not, Kurt's on a doctoring rampage lately,” Adam quips, determined to enjoy himself now that puppies are within reach. “Bit of a menace, that one.”

Elliott nods, a knowing smirk on his face. “Did he get you with the Ambien or the melatonin?”

“Excuse me,” Kurt protests while Adam bursts into laughter, both at the jibe and the look on Kurt’s face. He is practically  _bristling_ with affront at being ganged up on, and it’s a welcome burst of hilarity after the tension of their walk over.

Elliott’s smirk only grows. “You, my friend, established yourself that reputation,” he informs Kurt, pointing a finger in mock chastisement. “You can’t get upset about it  _now_.”

Kurt draws himself up and opens his mouth to refute the statement, but fortunately - or unfortunately, Adam can’t quite decide - whatever burgeoning tirade of outrage he’s winding up to is nipped in the bud by the appearance of a tiny woman with a pile of dark curls that’s nearly as tall as she is. She’s carrying a big plastic bin full of wriggling, snuffling, whimpering  _somethings_ and the look on her face tells Adam right away that she’s a force of nature.

“Cut out the fighting,” orders the woman who is presumably Stella Gilbert. “If you want to play with the puppies, you’ll shut it.”

It’s an effective threat. The room is silenced in a moment, leaving only the sound of snuffles and wiggles. Adam almost doesn’t dare even breathe until Stella surveys them all and at last nods in satisfaction, setting the bin down on the carpet. Two fuzzy little heads pop up over the edge and regard the room with bright black eyes.

 _Puppies_.

Stella gets to work. Adam likes her immediately; she possesses an assertiveness that he finds comfortingly familiar, a brash knees-and-elbows way of getting through the world that his equally diminutive mother and younger sisters share. Despite the fact that she’s a full head shorter than any of the three men in the room, she is absolutely the one in charge and knows it.

She marches up to Kurt first, shoving him down onto the sofa and grabbing his hands to turn them palms up. “You want your usual, Hummel?”

“Please?” Kurt bounces up and down in his seat exactly once before Stella glares him into sitting perfectly still. Only then does she consent to putting a wiggly pile of fur into his hands, a wiggly pile of fur that Kurt immediately cuddles to his chest, rubbing its ears and talking the kind of absolute nonsense to it that Adam has only ever heard him speak to very small babies and the occasional McQueen accessory.

Elliott’s already claimed a bright eyed little wriggler for his own, so Stella turns to Adam next. “You want to hold one too, right?”

“I’d like that very much.” And he really, really would. Yet excited as he is, Adam makes sure to hold very still as Stella turns up his palms just as she had done with Kurt, and he waits patiently as she reaches into the bin.

When she returns, Adam almost can’t see what she’s holding until she’s deposited the tiny little bundle of fur into his hands. “Okay. This guy’s the littlest one,” Stella informs him, gently pushing his hands until he’s holding the bundle close to his chest. “Be very gentle holding him - he starts out shy, but he’s a real snuggler if you’re careful and let him get to know you.” She smiles. “Kurt said you might like a super cuddly one when he called me.”

“Yes, that’s fantastic.” Adam can’t help but stare at the puppy in his arms. The snuggler in question really is wee, looking nowhere near ten weeks old at almost half the size of his littermates. His fur is short, striped like a caramel brownie and his slight weight fills Adam’s palms - he’s warm and breathing softly as he snuggles down into the hands that hold him, still drowsy and napping, unlike his siblings.

When he lifts his fluffy puppy head and yawns bigger than anything so small should be able to do, the smallest wee squeak escapes his mouth and Adam’s heart melts. It's  _adorable._

But then the puppy blinks his shiny black eyes, focuses them on Adam and  _peeps_. Adam is entirely and utterly  _gone_ in a heartbeat. “I want him.”

It's nice to know he can still surprise himself. He hadn't known he even  _wanted_ a puppy.

Kurt seems just as startled, lifting his head up from his own puppy cuddler and staring. “I said we were going to play with puppies, not shop for them.”

“And yet here we are.” Adam glances at Stella, who seems as surprised as Kurt at the inquiry. “Ten weeks. That’s old enough, right? They’re weaned?”

“Well, yes, and they’re up to date on vaccinations so far but…” Stella shakes her head. “That one’s the runt of the litter. Are you sure?”

“I absolutely am." To a surprising degree, even. "Whatever price, just name it. I can get you references, I can let you talk to my boss.” He  _needs_ this puppy. He can't explain it, he knows only that he's not leaving without the little guy. “Whatever’s required.”

Stella shrugs. “You’re friends with Kurt. As long as you have $500, then I think you can take Fitz home today.”

“Fitz?” Adam rubs the puppy’s nose, delighted when a little pink tongue unfurls and licks at his finger. “Perfect. You look  _exactly_ like a Fitz.”

“Fitz? No.” Kurt objects. “He needs a name big enough to grow into. I mean, if you’re going through with this.”

“Why wouldn’t I go through with it?” Tilting his head, Adam regards the puppy -  _his_ puppy - and thinks, scritching between Fitz's ears. "All right. Sir Roderick FitzHugh. That's suitably grandiose, and I can still call him Fitz."  He beams down at Fitz, who yips and wiggles his rear. He almost looks like he could be smiling, it’s delightful. “Kurt, I know you’re behind me making your judging face.”

A snort. “I am not. Why would you even think that?”

“Because Elliott is in  _front_ of me," Adam looks up and exchanges grins with Elliott, who has been silently watching Adam and ruffling the ears of the puppy in his own arms, "and he's making a face that looks quite remarkably a lot like Blaine’s Stop Doing That, Kurt face.”

"Blaine doesn't have a face like that," Kurt grumbles.

"Yeah, he does," Elliott retorts, his grin getting bigger as he winks at Adam. "I think everyone who knows you has a face like that."

“Fine.” Kurt gets up from the couch to join them, handing his puppy back over to Stella. “I may or may not be judging a little. I mean, come on, Adam. This is a  _little_ crazy, you have to admit. What about your landlord? What about supplies?”

"There's a pet store a few bus stops away, you can pick up supplies," Stella says, retrieving a sheet of paper from a nearby desk that she tucks into Adam's pocket. "That's a list of things like the food he's on, the shots he's had, stuff you'll find helpful in the early weeks.”

Adam nods, ignoring the fact that Fitz is gnawing on his knuckle. "I had dogs growing up, I think I can manage. As for my landlord,” he turns to Kurt, “It’s Theodora. She’s not going to care.”

Kurt just looks at him for a moment. Then his hand is out and grabbing Adam’s arm, dragging him and Fitz over to the front door. “Okay, so don’t you think maybe you’re letting your feelings for this whole Sebastian situation get the better of you and so you might be making a pretty bizarre and, may I add,  _expensive_ impulse decision?”

The point is not without logic, but, “It’s my decision to make, isn’t it?” Adam shoots back, ignoring the twinge of guilt that kicks up in his stomach.

Unfair though the retort may have been, it shuts Kurt right up.

And one $500 wire transfer and a frantic scramble for a carrier later, Fitz belongs to Adam for real.

Elliott walks them all back to the door. "Well. Thanks for livening up our Sunday, Adam," he says, his irrepressible sunny grin still impossible not to answer in kind. "I always forget how much fun it is to watch Kurt get all wound up."

Kurt says nothing, only heaves a put-upon sigh as he yanks open the front door and huffs down the steps.

Adam has to clutch Fitz's carrier tight as laughter threatens to shake him to pieces. "Oh, god, you're right, it  _is_ so much fun. And to gang up on him! I'm probably a bad friend, but I needed that."

"Kurt needs to loosen up," Elliott advises, shaking his head. "And you know, if he did do the doping thing, you owe him some ragging."

"This is true." They stand for a moment, a bit awkwardly, until Adam shifts his phone into his pocket and extends a hand for shaking. "Well. I should go after him. But it really was lovely to see you again."

Elliott takes his hand - and holds it. “Say, Adam..." The sunny day smile falters. "I know we don't really know each other, but...do you..." Elliott hesitates for a moment, then lets the rest of his thought out in a rush. "Do you want to get coffee sometime?”

Today is a day for the unexpected, it would seem. Adam can actually feel himself rock back, just a little, in his shock. "Oh, I..."

"Just coffee." The smile teases back around the corners of Elliott's mouth, doesn't quite reach his eyes to wipe apprehension away. "Or dinner. Whatever you want."

From heartbreak to puppy excitement to possibly being asked out on a date by a perfectly nice and good looking man: Adam could not be more flustered. “Oh...goodness. You seem like a lovely fellow, I…”

“You…” Elliott prompts, hands in pockets, eyebrows up, half-smile hopeful.

“I’m just getting out of something terribly...complicated.”  _And frankly I want back into it so I don't know where that leaves you._ "I'm sorry, Elliott." He really is. Under different circumstances...

Part of Adam wants to say yes. To agree to spend time with Elliott, to trade stories about Kurt, to talk about being performing artists in New York City, to try to strike up some kind of chemistry with this perfectly nice, good looking, interesting and  _interested_ man.

It's just that he already  _has_  chemistry with someone who fits all of that criteria and then some. It’s not that this couldn’t work - he can see himself taking Elliott up on his offer, can even see how it might work out and be  _easy_.

If Adam wanted easy in the first place.

 _Ah._ So that's his decision. Not so hard after all, in the end.

Adam wraps his arms back around Fitz's carrier and smiles as he shakes his head. “If things were a bit different for me right now, I might, but...no, Elliott. It was grand seeing you again, but no.”

“Eh. I tried.” The rejection seems to dim Elliott's smile only a little as he holds the door open for Adam. “See you around?”

“Maybe so.” His own smile doesn't fade as he ambles down the steps, carrier held safe and tight as he catches up to Kurt. “Right, homeward.”

Kurt inclines his head back towards Stella's. “Did Elliott just ask you out?”

“He did.” Adam can't stop smiling.

“Did you take him up on it?”

“I did not.”

Kurt stops, frowning. “Then why are you smiling?”

Still clutching the carrier tight, Adam spins in place, stepping backwards and grinning like an idiot. “Because I've got an awesome new puppy, it's a gorgeous day, and, Kurt Hummel, I have decided that I definitely need to figure out a way to get my boyfriend back.”

 


	27. Distressed Vessel

"Desperate times," Connor announces to his wide-eyed infant daughter, "call for desperate measures. Right, Dimples?"

Kira's only reply is a shrill peal of giggles when he tickles her feet, but Connor is willing to take it as agreement as he eyeballs the building before him and considers his best course of action for getting through Sebastian's apartment door. "You don't know this yet, but your Uncle Sebastian can be a real pain in the aaaaa....bacus."

One day he will get a better handle on his language in front of his daughter. He will. He's improving all the time. Really. That was the first time he's managed to actually _find_ a substitute for the word he was about to utter.

Never mind that it made no sense.

Back to the problem at hand. "He's not gonna just answer the door," Connor muses, considering the last time something like this happened. "He hasn't answered his phone, isn't gonna answer the door without a fight. But the rest of this isn't gonna work if I can't get _through_ the door, hey?"

Kira squeals again, and blows a wad of spit bubbles. Connor finds this encouraging.

"I think the key is I gotta be persistent enough he lets me in, right, but not so big a jerk that the neighbors call the cops on me." If the LES were still as rough and tumble as it used to be, this wouldn't even be a question. But these days this little square of Manhattan is, sadly, a little more trendy and shiny, an alternative for the professionals who can't quite reach their TriBeCa aspirations yet. What would work in his neck of the woods won't play well here.

So he'll just have to work fast, right?

“God fu...reakin bless,” he mutters, yanking open the building door while Kira kicks and flails excitedly in her baby carrier.

Connor’s appreciation of the apartment building Sebastian has chosen to reside in goes back and forth depending on his mood. On the one hand, it’s a gorgeous old building, cleaned up on the outside and renovated on the inside - aesthetically appealing and mostly functional. Mostly, because in a quirk of god only knew what, the owners had installed an elevator, but it doesn’t go to the ground floor. No, it starts on the fourth floor, so when Connor’s trudging up his third flight of stairs, weighed down by his daughter, her diaper bag, and his camera bag, his mood is not of the appreciative variety, and his ability to find appropriate substitutes for his swearing is wearing thin.

“Open your go...sh darn door, Smythe,” he yells when he finally arrives at Sebastian’s seventh floor apartment, his patience held together by a thread. Any mild concern he may have had about things so trivial as _neighbors_ and _the police_ is utterly melted away as he pounds on the door. “I know you’re in there.”

Actually, he doesn’t know that for  _sure_ and he’s going to feel pretty dumb if Sebastian is not in fact home and the cops are called and Rayna has to come bail him out but hey, it’s worth the stab in the dark. A Sebastian who is not answering his phone or emails is, in Connor’s experience, a Sebastian that’s not leaving the apartment much.

And Connor would not be here if he didn’t give a shit about his friend. Kid brother, really, even if the ties that initially bound them together had been stop bath and fixer rather than blood. Doesn’t matter. A brother is a brother is a brother, by Connor’s way of thinking, and brothers take care of their own.

It’s been two weeks since he last saw or heard from Sebastian. And sure, there’s a part of his brain that says _only two weeks_ , but after the whole last fucking mess with Greg, Connor’s a little more attuned to signs of trouble. He’d seen Sebastian happy with Adam at the bakery - and then Sebastian had missed the time they’d scheduled to look over the photos to pick the best ones for the bakery site.

Sebastian doesn’t miss appointments. Sebastian is punctual to a degree that most people find alarming - well, Connor does, it’s sick, who’s on time like that all of the time? - and if he is going to be late or entirely miss something, which is more rare than an intact mint condition vintage Hasselblad, he calls or texts.

He’d missed Christmas dinner with the entire Monaghan clan last time, a dinner they’d set up months before, a dinner that Connor’s entire family spent worrying about their adopted extra. It had taken Connor that long, that many months, to realize there actually was a problem.

Connor Monaghan does not take the same chances twice. S _omething is wrong, and I'd bet my life it's got something to do with Adam._

Well, that's what he's here to find out.

“Open up, man,” he calls, thumping his fist in rhythm with Kira kicking at the door. “Seriously. Don’t make me resort to drastic measures.”

If he has to resort to drastic measures, he is almost _certainly_ going to get hauled off by the police.

Footsteps thump across the floor on the other side of the door, and Connor waits, holding his breath, for the door to be opened. But no, the steps veer off - into the kitchen if he remembers the floor plan correctly - and he hears cabinets being opened, water running, and steps thumping back over in the direction of what he’s pretty sure is the bedroom. The door remains as impenetrable as ever.

He takes a step back and stares, not entirely sure what just happened. “He’s ignoring me,” he informs Kira in disbelief, mouth agape and hand still raised to knock. “Do you even believe that son of a bi...lly goat is ignoring me?”

“Ooo,” Kira says, craning her head to look at him with big brown eyes.

“Ooo is fu...nking right. Jesus, I gotta get a handle on myself. Okay.” He eyeballs the door. “Drastic measures are called for.”

Once upon a time when he was younger, drastic measures would have been him running himself into the door until it came down. He’s still not entirely over the fact that this can no longer be the solution - it’s so direct and efficient - but sadly, boxing injuries, the knowledge that his homeowner’s insurance probably won’t cover damage to someone else’s apartment, and the fact that he’s got his seven month old daughter strapped to his chest like a bomb seriously puts a damper on that kind of fun.

So it’s a good thing he’s got a backup plan.

Connor steps back from the door, keeping an eye on it as he rolls his head to crack his neck. Okay. Doing this. Going to do this. This is a thing he’s gonna do.

He opens his mouth. “So you’re havin’ trouble with the high school head,” he begins, belting out his best Bon Scott impression. It’s not actually a really good impression at all, but he’s pretty sure his enthusiasm has always made up for that at karaoke. “He’s givin’ you the blues...you wanna graduate but not in his bed, here’s what you gotta do…”

Belatedly, it occurs to Connor that the lyrics to _Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap_ are probably one of those things to which Rayna does not want their daughter exposed. He covers Kira's ears with his hands and carries on, hoping for the best. Maybe she won’t talk about this in therapy one day.

The neighbors seem mostly unconcerned as he winds up _Dirty Deeds_ , judging by the fact that not a single door opens while he’s shouting down the building. That luck does not hold when he starts in on _Big Balls_. Little old ladies and astonished young professional men alike crack their doors to stare at him strutting up and down the carpet, hands pressed even more firmly over his baby girl’s ears while she giggles and kicks and he sings some genuinely controversial lyrics.

But the door to 715 stays firmly shut.

 _Fucking enough of this_. “I’m not leaving until you open the door, Sebastian,” he shouts, pretending to ignore the neighbors but really keeping the corner of his eye on them in case one of them does decide to either start in on him or go for their phones. “I know a lot of songs and I don’t have any shame whatsoever and you know it, so either answer the door or I’ll be billing you for my bail money.”

Nothing.

“You asked for it,” he mutters. This one - this is dirty fucking pool, actually, if what he thinks happened actually happened. But Connor suspects it’s a guaranteed opening of the door, and right now, that’s his primary goal. He just hopes that having Kira attached to his chest is an equally guaranteed deterrent to a Sebastian that is almost certainly going to want to beat the shit out of him.

“When I wake up...well I know I’m gonna be...I’m gonna be the man who -”

The door swings open to reveal Sebastian, hair standing on end and murder in his eyes.   
“Fuck you,” he snarls, right before he spots Kira and his eyes get huge. “Oh shit - I didn’t know you had - I mean, damn it - fuck! Sorry!”

“Uk uk uk,” Kira volunteers cheerfully, and Connor grins.

“I take it you know she doesn’t actually mean _uk_ , right?” he asks.

The anger in Sebastian’s eyes is joined by no small amount of sheepish embarrassment. “Yeah.”

“And that Rayna is probably going to kill you, because I’m sure as sh...ugar not taking the fall for it?”

Sebastian presses his mouth into a line and nods. “Yeah.”

Silence falls, then, and Connor keeps an eye on Sebastian, waiting for him to say more or to slam the door in their faces. Nothing of the sort, though, seems to be forthcoming. Sebastian just stands in his doorway and stares at the both of them, clearly waiting for Connor to lead the conversation wherever it’s going to go.

So okay then. "So...you look like shhhhiii...hungover," Connor says, trying to hide his shock. He's being kind. Sebastian actually looks like he was strapped to the back end of the F train and dragged at least four stops.

"I am hungover." Sebastian leans against the doorjamb, eyes bloodshot and dark circled.

“Well. I hope you’re up for company, we came all this way.” He unzips his camera bag and pulls out a package. “I brought sandwiches. Roast beef. Horseradish.”

Sebastian shakes his head and backs up, hand reaching out for the door. "Now's not a good time Connor -"

“And I brought Kira. You haven’t spent a lot of time with her yet.” He tickles Kira’s foot with his free hand to make her giggle. "No time like the present, it's great, babies are the perfect remedy for a hangover."

"I'm pretty sure that's not true," Sebastian begins, alarmed, but Connor is not taking no for an answer. Before Sebastian can stop him, Connor has Kira installed in her godfather’s arms and is pushing through the door to dump their bags onto the floor. Hands now free, he’s in the kitchen, pulling down plates for the sandwiches and a pair of soft drinks out of the refrigerator, pretending to ignore the fact that Sebastian is still standing in the doorway holding Kira and looking like someone’s just smacked him upside the head.

Good. Getting and _keeping_ Sebastian off balance is pretty much the only way Connor’s going to get information out of him. He slaps their plates down on the kitchen table and waves his friend over. "So. I was just in the neighborhood."

“Bull...uh, bullpoop.” Sebastian slumps down in one of the pipe and canvas chairs he calls kitchen furniture and glares. "You're never just in the neighborhood. You live in Brooklyn."

"What, like I’ve never crossed the river?" Connor scoffs. “Are you kidding me? I live in Williamsburg. I coulda walked it if I didn’t have Kira with me.” He slides a plate and soda over. “Eat something. You look like...well, you know what you look like.”

“Such diplomacy.” It takes Sebastian a moment to figure out how to hold Kira with one hand and pick up his sandwich with the other. It takes a lot for Connor not to laugh at the spectacle; poor guy’s clearly been through enough lately. Although a lot of it is probably his own doing, really.

But Connor can still feel sympathy for that kind of thing. "So.” He picks up his own sandwich and bites in, keeping himself casual as hell. “Things going a little rough for you these days?”

A shrug. “Seen better ones.”

 _Oh good. I love playing dentist. Jesus, can you never just talk?_ He wouldn’t have to play dirty if Sebastian weren’t so difficult. He doesn’t take it personally - he’s seen Sebastian be coy and opaque and downright buttheaded with a lot of people. But it’s infuriating all the same. And while it makes most folks give up and walk off, it just encourages Connor to be a dick. “How’s Adam?”

The question surprises Sebastian mid-bite; all he can do is glare while he chews and swallows, and Connor regrets nothing. He just waits and works on his own sandwich until Sebastian finally says, “None of your business.”

“I dunno. You and I had a date to work on the photos we took of him and the gang at the bakery, and you kind of bailed on me without notice, so in a very, uh, _circuitous_ sorta way, yeah, it’s my business.” Ooh, that was a little more edgy than he meant it to be. Well, he’s still pissed and he’s concerned and if he gets a little gruff, well, who the fuck’s it gonna hurt? The important thing is, he was right: this has totally got something to do with Adam.

Sebastian’s arm tightens more securely around Kira as he begins to pay very careful attention to a spot on the wall. “Sorry.”

“Sebastian.” _Pulling teeth pulling teeth pulling teeth I swear to fucking god..._

“Look,” Sebastian snarls, snapping his head around to level another of his poisonous glares across the table. “I don’t have to -”

“Remember when I said I wasn’t gonna let you disappear on me again?” Connor interrupts, setting his sandwich aside so he can lean across the table. “This is me following through on that. Got it?”

For a moment it looks like Sebastian is going to reach over and punch Connor in the nose, but - “Yeah. Got it,” he mutters, hugging Kira close and resuming work on his lunch.

Connor decides to let things rest for the moment. Not a skill he’s used to using - Rayna’s had to hammer it into his head over the years. If he had his way all the time, he’d push and push and push until he got shit done, that’s how he’s done it all his life and it worked okay enough, he figured. But he’s learning, see. Sometimes you gotta be subtle. You gotta do an end run around the other side instead of just plowing through it. Gotta use your teammates to your advantage.

Which is, after all, why Kira is with him today.

They finish their sandwiches in silence - apart from Kira babbling aimlessly at her feet - and therefore without further incident. Seems like a good time to put phase 2 of his plan into effect. “Say, listen, I gotta borrow your little darkroom setup.”

The look this puts on Sebastian’s face is truly comical indeed. “You own a _photography_ shop. You have a _darkroom_. An actual, professional darkroom that two people can be in at once without the threat of drowning on the wet table or suffocating from chemical fumes.”

“Yeah, but I can’t take Kira in there.” His excuse is both air and watertight. “And Rayna’s at the gallery setting up for their big show coming up, my dad and stepmom are on a cruise, and my brothers took their kids to the Mets game today.”

Sebastian cocks a skeptical eyebrow. “And you didn’t want to go with them?”

“Hey, I’m all for watching the home team get creamed by the Phillies, you know that, but Kira’s kinda young for that kind of thing, so, you know, here I am.” He shrugs and hopes his grin looks innocent enough. “I got some photos I need to develop and no one to watch Kira. I figured since you weren’t answering my calls I wasn’t gonna have any hope of getting you over to my place. So…” He shrugs one more time. “You kinda brought this on yourself, bucko.”

"You could develop them later," Sebastian points out, eyes narrowed. "Is there really that big a rush?"

"Eh. I wanted to get it done today. Come on," Connor coaxes, pulling out his most winning grin. "I'm only developing to negative and I'm already here. Might as well let me do it."

Sebastian's face doesn't relax. "You're up to something."

"Yeah," Connor admits. He is, no hiding that and he'd be a dumbass to try. But he doesn't have to tell _everything_ , right? "I'm up to making sure you're still alive and that you're not gonna disappear and in the meantime if I get to develop some photos, bonus."

He leans back in his chair with his soda and waits. Of course, he's only nominally leaving this up to Sebastian. If Sebastian demands they leave, Connor's just going to lock himself in the bathroom and refuse to come out.

He's on a mission and he ain't leaving till he gets it done.

Sebastian watches him a while longer and finally sighs, rolling his eyes. "Fine. Develop your sh...stuff."

"Thanks, buddy. Nah, don't get up." Connor pats Sebastian on the shoulder and pushes him back down into his chair. "I'll set up the room. I know where you keep the necessaries."

Not that he's going to need them.

Still, he drags the table into the bathroom and wedges it into the shower, gets out the tubs and sets them up. He does feel slightly guilty pouring out chemicals he has no intention of using, but Sebastian has to believe this is why he's here, and shit, it's not like he's pouring out that much.

It doesn't take long to get set up. His last step is replacing the regular light bulb with the special darkroom one and he's ready. "Okay," he calls over to the kitchen, where Sebastian is still holding Kira on his knee and looking slightly panicked. "I'll see you both in a couple of hours."

"Wait," Sebastian sputters, slight panic escalating visibly. "What if she cries?"

Connor shrugs. "Check her diaper."

"Oh god."

"There's spares in her bag," Connor says, shutting the bathroom door and turning on the extractor fan before Sebastian can come around and find him about to explode laughing. He slides down to the floor holding in his howls of mirth until it hurts.

And now all there is for him to do is sit and wait.

He reaches into his bag and extracts his iPad. He’s been stuck on level 97 in Candy Crush for about a month now with no time to really sit and focus on figuring it out. This time alone is just another bonus for him being a clever meddling asshole; for these kind of priceless benefits, he resolves to be a clever meddling asshole way more often.

It doesn’t take long for him to get sunk deep into his game, tapping and sliding his finger over rows of sweets and jellies, always keeping an ear out for anything going horribly wrong. Not that he really expects anything too bad - the Monaghans had been truly, truly blessed with the world’s most adorable and happy baby. Kira could not be easier to tend to. Sebastian could literally play peekaboo with her for several hours and she would be amazingly content.

Actually, from the pitch and decibel level of the shrieks Connor’s hearing from the living room, that’s exactly what’s happening. Occasionally he’ll hear Sebastian say, astonishment plain in his voice, “Again? Really?” But he must keep doing it, because Kira’s shrieky giggles go on and on and on.

Kira is not, however, immune to things like hunger and wet diapers. Connor hears the giggles beginning to shift into fretful fussing before Sebastian registers them, and he has to hold himself back from zipping out to take care of his daughter. The jig would be up in a heartbeat if he emerges from the bathroom before a reasonable time for processing passes.

The bliss of free time is now the agony of forced inaction.

Kira’s fussing morphs into tiny hiccupping sobs that Connor knows well will ramp up into a full on tantrum if Sebastian can’t figure out the issue soon. And it kills him, but still he waits while Sebastian begins to panic. “What? Oh, god, was that last one too scary? I’m sorry, okay, please, don’t cry.”

Which of course does not work, and Connor nearly claws the palms of his hands off.

“Okay. I’m...I’m checking this…” A deep breath. “Okay. Checking the - nope, thank god, everything’s dry and clean. Okay. So...okay. Do I rock you to sleep or something?” A full-lunged angry scream is the answer Sebastian gets to that. “No. No sleep then. Oh, god, Kira, please, I’m sorry, your dad’s an idiot and I’m an idiot and I don’t speak baby.”

There’s a sudden jingling and rummaging sound. Good. He finally had the sense to check the diaper bag. “Do you want a toy? I - oh, no, okay, please - please stop hitting me with that.” Zippers and snaps click and whirr in quick succession. “How about a pacifier? You want a - wow. Wow, you can really spit.”

Imagining the mayhem out in the living room is just hilarious enough that Connor can laugh and not run out to fix everything.

“Let’s see…” Rummage, rummage, rummage. “Oh, hey, there’s a bottle in - oh. Is that what you were looking for?” Kira is babbling now, impatient for her lunch, must be stretching to reach for it. “Got it. Wait, though, let me shake it up. And not think about how this has to be fresh from your mom. Oh, my god.”

Connor is impressed at how Sebastian can be both not entirely helpless and totally squeamish all the same time.

The couch creaks as Sebastian settles down into it, and Connor can just barely make out the sound of Kira sucking away at her bottle. “There you go. Yeah. That looks like that’s better. I mean, I have no idea how you’re finding that enjoyable, but more power to you, small fry.”

Kira’s soft suckling sounds are the only noise for a long, long time, and then -

"Your Uncle Adam would be better at this."

The utterance is low and dark, and the pain in it makes it tight, like the skin over a bruised cheekbone. Connor winces to hear it.

“I miss him. It’s been two weeks, and I miss him.” Silence. A sigh. “I keep finding things I miss him doing. His cookies are better than the ones at the bakery by work. He makes better spaghetti. Better tea, I never get the tea right. I drink tea voluntarily, what even?” There’s a soft ragged edge of hysteria in Sebastian’s chuckle. “And now babies. He’s handled babies before, I never have, he probably would have known right away you were hungry.”

The next laugh is half of a sob. “I messed up. I _am_ messed up. He made things better, but I don’t deserve it. But I still miss it. _That’s_ messed up. Not fair.”

Silence, again, except for Kira’s little humming noises as she eats and Sebastian taking long, slow, deep breaths. Connor’s utterly forgotten about his game now, iPad sitting abandoned in his lap while he listens and hurts for his friend. _This is Greg’s fault_ , he thinks, as certain of this as he has ever been of anything. No way does Sebastian think that about himself because of anything Adam did. Not that Connor’s really been around Adam a whole lot, but - he knows.

He knows, and the proof of it is in his bag right now, it’s the whole real reason he’s here.

But it is not time for that yet. Connor presses his ear to the door and keeps listening. Sebastian isn’t saying a whole lot - who would, to a baby? - but what he is saying is informative enough for Connor’s purposes.

“It was a mistake to leave him but...he’s better off without anyone who would make that kind of mistake, right? Nobody needs that kind of fu….screw up in their lives.”

 _Ouch. This is definitely Greg’s fault and I better remember I promised Rayna no more fighting._ It’s difficult, though. While Pre-Greg Sebastian would have been unlikely to date Adam, Pre-Greg Sebastian was also never this hard on himself, never hated himself like this. Pre-Greg Sebastian had swagger and attitude and thought he was god’s gift to the earth and okay, that had been annoying as shit but Connor would do just about anything to have any semblance of that Sebastian back right now. That guy was a jerk, but he wasn’t a giant sucking black hole of self-hatred. _Nobody deserves to feel like that. Nobody. Except maybe Greg_.

Connor slumps back against the door to think. Something’s got to be done about this. Therapy, for one thing, but that’s not up to him or anything he can make happen. So okay. Next best thing, getting Sebastian and Adam back together. That, maybe he can’t make it happen, but he can try to help facilitate it, right? Not a whole lot from this end, though. Sebastian would never, he thinks he’s in the wrong too much - and Connor is still curious as to what exactly led to this split, actually.

No, the bulk of the work’s gonna have to come from the other side. If Adam wants it. Which Connor has excellent reason to believe that he will.

Not that he’s going to not even _try_ to encourage Sebastian a little.

He gets so absorbed in considering his options that it takes a while for Connor to realize that it's been very silent in the living room for a while. With mild concern, he opens the bathroom door and peers out to see what's going on.

_Aw. That’s fucking adorable._

Sebastian has fallen - mercifully, by the look of him when Connor and Kira had arrived - sound asleep on the sofa, Kira laying on his chest and just as asleep, her tiny body rocking gently with every breath Sebastian takes. One of Sebastian’s hands holds Kira firmly in place; the other is dangling down towards the floor, half empty bottle pointed nipple down and leaking into the nondescript apartment carpet.

If Connor actually had his camera with him, he'd get a picture, it's that perfect a moment. That’s all right, though. He has just as perfect a moment at hand, and better for his purposes. It’s the entire reason he came here.

Dipping a hand into his camera bag, Connor pulls out a small, but expertly framed and matted photo and tiptoes into Sebastian's bedroom. With care, he places it next to Sebastian's reading glasses and alarm clock on the bedside table, stepping back to survey his work.

Perfect. If Connor were to _tell_ Sebastian he needed to sack up and get back together with Adam, it would go over like a lead balloon. But a little subtle encouragement like this, that can’t hurt. Right?

It's one moment in time, one quick second Connor had happened to capture, that’s all. Nothing massive. Except -

Except that there’s so much _in_ that second, a breathtaking connection, a moment of intimacy snatched in a tiny crowded bakery kitchen. Connor almost, almost hadn't taken it, his breath trapped in his chest to see such a moment of quiet love between two people.

It had made him think of his father and mother - not his stepmother, but his birth mother. Before she died in a car accident when Connor was ten, he remembers his mother and father being around each other just like he's seeing Sebastian and Adam in this photograph.

That’s what had gotten him to press the button, to freeze the moment forever.

He'd developed it in black and white, made it a stark moment that looks like it can almost come to life and let you hear the sound of Sebastian whispering in Adam's ear, to catch Adam's soft chuckle as he squeezes frosting onto a cupcake, to actually see Sebastian's arms tighten around Adam's waist and link them so closely together you couldn't fit a sigh between their bodies.

It's love in a concentrated, frozen second of time, and he hopes it lights a fire under Sebastian, makes his friend want it back, to want a million more moments like it in the future. _This is worth fighting for_ , he thinks, and hopes that when Sebastian sees it, he'll think so too. Sentimental, Connor is not. But he has a heart that burns fierce, he is capable of love and of identifying love, and if he is, then Sebastian is too, whether he wants to admit it or not.

Connor backs out of the bedroom and into the living room, crouching down by the couch. It is with a gentle hand that he shakes at Sebastian’s shoulder. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

“Ugh...uh…” Sebastian blinks, focuses on Connor. “Sh...oot. Um. Sorry. Did you get your stuff done?”

“Um. Sure.” No need to admit that it’s been less than an hour, at least not right now. For which Connor is grateful, because he had been fully prepared to spend the full two hours there, but thank god for sleepy people and sleepy babies, right? “Go back to sleep. Kira and I will leave you alone now.”

“Okay.” And he does seem to fall back completely asleep pretty immediately, barely even twitching as Connor extracts Kira from his grip and gets her strapped back into her carrier, facing in this time so she can keep napping.

Sebastian’s quiet little snores and mumbles follow the pair of them out the door.

He’s so tired. And hurting. And that’s no way for anyone to live.

Kira grumbles as they emerge into the sun, rubbing her face against Connor’s chest. He chuckles softly. "One more stop, Dimples?" He rubs at her soft hair, enjoying her drowsy burble. "Can you be good for me a little longer while we make one more visit uptown?"

"Buh," Kira puffs out with a tiny pop of her lips before her head droops sleepily sideways.

 _Works for me_ , he thinks, and heads for the subway.

 


	28. Becalmed

“So here we are,” Adam says after he closes the apartment door behind Kurt and Blaine. It had taken all three of them to get Adam, Fitz, and all their belongings back to Morningside Heights. "Just you and me, now."

Fitz has trotted along behind him to the door as if to help see Kurt and Blaine off, is perched on his fuzzy haunches and cocking his little head like he's actually listening. Adam can't help but smile at the very idea - not to mention the sheer adorableness of his new pet.  "Well. Go on, then," he instructs, waving a hand around their small home. "You might as well explore the place."

Fitz does nothing to dispel the illusion that he understands English when he snuffles off to inspect the baseboards and furniture.

Adam slumps down at his kitchen table and looks around, letting out a sigh he's been holding back for the last hour. There's a stack of dessert carriers he should clean and put away. Several bags of toys and supplies and even a puppy bed for Fitz he should sort out. His overnight bags probably ought to be emptied and the week's worth of unworn clothing returned to the closet. A very small studio apartment can become extremely cluttered with an alarming swiftness.

But he sits, and he watches his pet, and he thinks about his vow to get Sebastian back.

He'd meant it at the time, a mere two hours ago. Still means it, and means to do it. It's the _how_ that escapes him, disgruntles him and sucks dry a little of his former enthusiasm for the idea. He wants to know what to do _now_. That nothing came immediately to mind the minute the words left his mouth is as irksome as a mosquito bite. He knows it is ridiculous - _two hours!_ \- but he can't help his irritation.

Still, Adam inherited a mile-wide romantic streak from his father and an indomitable will from his mother, so he'll work it out even if it takes a week.

He rather hopes it does not in fact take a week.

_Tea_ , he decides, pushing away from the table. _Tea first. Then thinking._ And food - it's after five, and he hasn't had anything except for Kurt's Monte Cristo all day. As if reminded, his stomach growls. _Tea, and food, then thinking,_ he amends. _Or I can multitask. Food and thinking._

After a pantry scramble, he’s got an idea of tomato soup and a tuna salad sandwich on toast for himself, has a bowl of organic puppy mash down on the floor for Fitz, and is filling the kettle when a knock comes at the door. Adam blinks in surprise and looks down at Fitz. “You expecting anyone?”

Fitz just lets out a yippy little bark and cocks his head again.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Adam plugs in the kettle and turns it on before heading for the door. “But I’m not, either, so I do wonder - hello, Connor?”

And it is indeed Sebastian’s best friend, complete with adorable baby strapped to his chest, when Adam pulls the door open. “Hiya,” Connor says, grinning as he holds up a bag. “Good to see you, too. Cinnamon pretzel?”

Well, that’s unexpected.

“Ah, sure...come in…” Bemused, Adam ushers the pair of Monaghans into his apartment, helping Connor divest himself of a diaper bag, a satchel, and, of course, Kira. “This is a lot of stuff to haul up three flights of stairs.”

 “Twice, even. You weren’t home the first time I knocked, so I went across the street and I’ve been watching for you to get home for about...three hours?” Connor points to Adam’s bed. “Mind if I put Kira down? The coffee shop was playing all this soft indie rock stuff, it knocked her right out.”

 “No, of course, absolutely.” Waiting for him to get home for _three hours_? Thank goodness, Adam supposes, for innate British politeness even in the face of situations that make no sense whatsoever. _Well. I suppose there’s a reason we’re the ones who gave Monty Python to the world_ … He helps Connor pile pillows around Kira and wonders what, exactly, is going on. “Would you like some tea? Or dinner, even, I was about to throw something together.”

Connor flings himself down into a chair. “Yeah to the tea, nah to the dinner. You got company?”

Adam frowns. "Company?"

"I heard you talking to someone."

"Oh, no, I see. No." He points down to where Fitz is making whuffing noises into his food. "I...I sort of acquired a dog. Today. Which is why I’m home now, actually, I wasn’t supposed to be..." _He waited for hours. Why?_

"That's a dog?" When Connor cocks his head down to get a better look at Fitz, it’s a little unnerving how much he rather _resembles_ the puppy. "Huh. That _is_ a dog. And you were talking to him.”

Adam draws himself upright, stopping short of sticking his nose into the air. _I have dignity, thank you._ “Many people talk to their pets.”

“Uh huh.” Connor settles back upright with a slow grin. “So. Howya doin’, Adam?”

“Um…” Well, there’s a question, isn’t there? Adam is really not sure what answer Connor might be seeking. Or what answer might be appropriate to give. How do you answer this question coming from your ex-lover’s best friend - who surely must be aware of what’s going on - without coming off as desperate or needy in any way?

Which, frankly...that particular horse might be shot in the foot before it even gets to running. Connor did hear him talking to his dog, after all.

_No_ , he sulks back at himself. _Lots of people talk to their pets. I didn’t make that up!_

Oh, he might just be losing the plot here a little bit.

Also, _why is Connor here_?

Fine. Executive decision. The best course of action is to try to pretend everything is completely under control. Also to evade Connor’s question entirely since he has no good answer for it. “I’ll get the tea, shall I?”

A shrug. Connor, obviously, does not have any need to pretend control. It’s very annoying. “Sure.”

_Very_ annoying.

Still full of questions and worries and wonderings, Adam gets down a pair of mugs and the tea things and puts his best face on when he turns to face his guest. He doesn’t like feeling tipped off-balance. He really doesn’t like the smirk on Connor’s face that tells him that this is a fellow who is very good at doing the tipping.

This is not going to work out for one of them. Now, the sad thing is that Adam is pretty sure he’s the one that’s going to come out on the losing side of this - but he’s not going down without a struggle. He at least wants answers. “So,” he begins, bringing the milk and sugar to the table. “It’s not usual for you to wander up this way on a Sunday, I think. A bit far for you, isn’t it?”

Connor wobbles his hand as if to say, _no big deal._ “Eh, well, we’re meeting Rayna soon, she’s not far from here today.” He flashes a big, big smile of pride. “She’s working on the new exhibition at the Klotz.”

Well. That’s airtight. Rayna _had_ mentioned the show when she came to pick Connor up at Sweets two weeks ago. “Oh, that's got to be a fun job. I’ve seen the flyers, the show looks really interesting.” Still, something isn’t sitting quite right. Adam carries on, pouring boiling water and arranging the sugar spoons until he works out what. “Ah, but, the Klotz Gallery, that’s nearly twenty blocks south of here.”

“Give or take.” Connor shrugs and fiddles with the bag of pretzels. “But that’s sort of in the neighborhood, so I figured hey, why not come see you and all? It’s only a few stops extra.”

_And I’m the Duchess of Cornwall_. Adam raises an eyebrow. Something is definitely up. He doesn't even _know_ Connor and he can spot it. “Are we on drop in terms just yet?”

The smile doesn’t falter. “I figure now’s a good a time as any for us to get on ‘em.”

_Oh, nothing rattles you, does it?_ Clearly a more direct line of questioning is in order here, never mind that it goes against everything in Adam’s very English nature. His curiosity is eating him alive. "But you were waiting for hours." He sets their mugs down on the table next to the milk and sugar, keeping cool, keeping casual, smiling away. "So then it’s not really a drop in."

“You implying I maybe got ulterior motives?”

“Oh, no.” Adam beams. “I’m saying it outright.”

Connor's fingers keep plucking at the pretzel bag and he chuckles. "We got people in common, you seem cool, no reason not to be friends."

“But _hours_ -” The crinkle of the paper catches Adam's attention at last and he takes a closer look at the bag. _I know that logo, don't I?_ It's tugging at the back of his mind, something familiar, something - he's gotten pretzels at that same stand, yes? Several times. Right? _Best pretzels on the Lower East Side, Sebastian always said_ -

It clicks into place like the flip of a switch. "You’ve seen him. Today.”

Connor flops an arm over the back of his chair, lopsided grin in full effect. "Nice deduction, Holmes."

_Oh, my god._ "Tell me how he is." So much for cool, calm, neither desperate nor needy. He's not entirely surprised to find that he's lunged across the table and grabbed Connor's hand.

Not, perhaps, his most dignified moment, but he hasn't presently got a pair of fucks to rub together.

"He's been better." Connor is calm as he extracts his hand from Adam's grip. "But he's mostly okay. Clearly drinking like a fish and the apartment smells like an ashtray - if I'm being blunt."

"I expect you are blunt quite a lot of the time," Adam says, perhaps with some obvious impatience which is very rude, he knows, but again, completely lacking in fucks.

Connor snickers. "Yeah. It's a gift.”

“You’ve seen him. My god, you’ve seen him.” He can’t decide if he wants to scream, laugh, or run the seven miles to Sebastian’s apartment and demand one last time to be allowed entrance. “I don’t know - how did you - I want - ” But finishing a thought, let alone a spoken sentence, is suddenly impossible. He’s pulled in too many directions.

“You wanna know what I think, is what you want.” It’s not a question.

“I don’t think that’s actually where I was going with that,” Adam shoots back without stopping to think. He picks up his spoon and starts adding milk and sugar to his tea.  “But do go on.”

Connor tips one shoulder up, nonchalant and irritating as hell in his certainty. "You need to get your -” He stops and glances at his daughter, who is still sound asleep. “ - ass down there and get him back."

For a moment, all Adam can do is sit, frozen with his spoon in mid-stir. _Really. Really? That’s what you have to offer?_ “Just...go down there and get him back.”

“Yeah.”

"Oh!” Adam throws his spoon down on the table and his hands in the air, letting out a bark of laughter. “Oh yes! Because that's so _easy_. I never once thought of that! Good heavens, how stupid of me.”

“Aw, come on -” Connor reaches out his hand, but Adam ignores him.

“No, no, because when someone refuses to answer your calls, emails, text messages or even his _door_ when you knock on it, it really paves the way for reconciliation." He chokes down the hysterical laughter bubbling up from his stomach. “No, no, I haven’t spent the last two hours trying to figure out how to make him _listen_ to me for a minute so I can try to get him back, oh, no I haven’t at all -”

"Well, I got _my_ ass in the door.”

At that almost lazy interruption, Adam shuts up and glares across the table to where Connor, with care that appears severely exaggerated, pulls the tea bags from his mug and adds sugar, stirring with a slow and maddening precision. He takes a long, long drink, eyes twinkling over his mug, and he doesn’t say another word.

_It's impolite to strangle one's guests._ “Fine," Adam snaps, less than thrilled with how Connor is making him drag answers out. "How exactly did you manage that?”

“I stood outside his apartment and sang that one song we caught you singing at the bakery that one morning.”

Adam feels his jaw drop. “I think you may be a genuinely awful person.”

“Maybe.” Connor tilts his head. “But I'm the one that got in the door.”

Well, fine. The man does have a point.

Adam’s irritation drains away and he slumps down against the back of his chair, back to where he’d been before Connor even knocked on his door. Fitz is nosing around his feet and whining in distress; Adam picks the puppy up and scratches at his little neck. “The thing is...I...I mean, even if he’d let me in the door, the plain fact is I have no idea what to say to him. I don’t know what to ask him, if I should apologize, what words are the right ones...I mean…” Words slip through the fingers of his mind like sand, and he gropes to find anything comprehensible. “I didn’t even get to know what happened to him before it came back and absolutely destroyed our relationship.”

Connor watches him, assessing, measuring as always. “You know now, though?”

“Yeah. Enough.” But it scratches at him, chafes and rubs from the inside out until he can’t hold it in any longer. “No. Not enough. Well, enough about that, but - this is ridiculous. I’m in love with someone I don’t even know. Did you know that?” A hysterical little giggle slips past his disintegrating control. “Literally, I didn’t know his middle name until two weeks ago. We just...we never talked about ourselves because he clearly didn’t trust me and I was too afraid to push him. I fell in love with Sebastian and I can’t tell you what his favorite color is.”

“Green.”

Adam’s fingers still in the act of rubbing Fitz’s ears. “Sorry?”

“His favorite color. It’s green.” Connor taps his spoon against his mug. “What the hell does that matter?”

“Well, I mean -” Off balance and flailing again. Adam is making his own assessment of just how much he likes Connor as he sputters. At this moment, the numbers aren’t looking so good. “I mean it’s no wonder I don’t know what to say to him, I don’t even know him.”

“Yeah, okay, but it’s not like saying ‘So your favorite color is green, let’s get back together’ is the way to go, I gotta tell you.” Connor is snickering, which does not help his case as far as Adam is indignantly concerned. “That’s the kind of shit that’s only useful when you gotta buy somebody presents. Forget the details.”

“More easy answers from the great Connor Monaghan.” Adam can practically feel his mother clocking him upside the head for that unbridled lack of manners, but he’s tired of Connor being so unflappable and of himself feeling so dumb. “Do you really think that if it were so very easy, I wouldn’t have already done it?”

The mask slips for one swift second as Connor leans across the table. “It is actually that easy, dumbass.”

“Oh, now we’re name calling.”

“Well, you’re kind of being a superior jerk for someone who doesn’t know how to get his boyfriend back,” Connor snaps. “Fuck the details, Crawford, okay? Go with what you _know_. You said you love him. That true?”

“Well, of course, but -”

Connor draws his finger across his throat and waits for Adam to shut up. “Do you love him?” His voice demands no answer but the most simple and sincere that Adam can give.

So he does. “More than anything.”

A nod. "What do you love about him?"

"Everything." Simple, yet...well, yes. It’s a bit complicated.

With another nod, Connor sits back. “All righty. Elaborate.”

"Really, it's everything. I love all of Sebastian, not just this part or that.” But Adam stops to think, to take stock when Connor’s eyes don’t lose their expectant look, their demand for more. “He’s funny - sarcastic funny, dark sarcastic. I love that. I love that he’s never, ever at rest even when he’s sitting still - he just has this energy?” He has to set Fitz down so he can talk with his hands, sketching in the air as if he could bring Sebastian into the room just by describing him. “I love the way his eyes light up when he laughs, I love how he doesn’t know how to do anything in the kitchen but wants to help anyway. I love the fact that he has the most absolutely hilarious little grumbles and snores I have ever heard.”

“The snoring is definitely funny,” Connor concedes, cracking a smile.

“I love that I met him in a bar, like it’s the most amazing cliche in the world and we all know it, but I love it anyway. I love that he is always, _always_ humming and tapping pencils on things.” Now he almost can’t stop. “I love that when he’s asleep after a bad day, he...he finds me. Just...in his sleep, he finds me. He did it the first night we met.”

_I still wonder if you felt me kiss you that night._

“I love that there’s more to know, for me to find out. But...I  even love the parts that are harder to handle than others. Even whatever part of him led him to literally run away from me." Adam stops to breathe, to swallow down the lump in his throat. "I think that part must need quite a lot more love than the rest, really."

Connor stares again for a very long time before finally nodding. “Okay. That’s it.”

_Hm?_ “That’s what?”

“That’s what you say.” Getting to his feet, Connor pulls a picture frame from his bag and slides it across the table, face down. "Don’t -” He raises a finger in clear warning. “Don’t look at that until after we’re gone.”

Adam looks up at him, astonished, hand outstretched over the picture frame. “That’s it? You’re leaving?”

“Well, I mean…” It can’t be easy to shrug while strapping a Baby Bjorn to yourself, but Connor manages it. “I’m serious. Tell Sebastian what you just told me. You have everything you need to say, what else do you need me for?”

“But I -”

Connor waves his hand. “Just...just look at that photo. No, I said after I leave.”

With heroic effort, Adam resists the urge to snatch the frame up and take a good long look at whatever’s in it. "What is it?"

"The swift kick in the ass you seem to be looking for, I hope." Bags are retrieved, a sleeping baby is returned to her carrier, a door is opened. “For what it’s worth, I’m behind you a hundred percent, Adam.”

Before Adam can say anything more, Connor has smiled at him and disappeared down the stairs. Adam waits for his footsteps to clatter into silence before finally snatching up the photo and turning it over.

His heart slams to a stop in his chest.

_Oh._ He can’t breathe. _I remember this._ Everything hurts. _I didn’t see him take this._ He reaches forward, like he could get through the glass and make the picture be real. _Why isn’t it real?_

He can feel Sebastian’s arms encircling him, an anchor, a safe place, a harbor. Hears the warmth of Sebastian’s tickling whisper into his ear. Remembers leaning into the embrace, moving on with his work, like it was natural and every day and it _was_ like that, it was, _goddamn_ it, and he has to stop and almost crawl out of his chair over to the bed, holding the photo, trying to remind himself of what it’s like to be able to breathe and think without it hurting.

Fitz trots around to the other side of the futon and hops up to stand facing him, head cocked with puppy questions as he whines and whuffles at Adam’s hands clutched tight around the framed photograph, pressed to his chest where his heart still doesn’t feel like it’s resumed normal activity. Adam wants to reach out and comfort the little dog, knows he should, can’t get his fingers to uncurl from around the sharp cornered wood that holds everything he wants in one frozen moment.

_I have to get him back._

He can’t move.

_Tonight. I have to do this tonight._

Just as soon as he can move.

_Not another minute, I can’t do this any longer._

There’s a knock at the door.


	29. Surfacing

When Sebastian comes to, it’s like swimming up through a fog.

Slowly, he blinks gritty eyes and becomes aware of himself in stages - his back hurts from sleeping on the couch. His head still aches from last night’s overindulgence. His stomach is not really thrilled with the amount of horseradish the deli had put on that sandwich Connor had brought him.

He swings his legs down and sits slumped at the edge of the couch, trying to rub away the sensation of dust in his eyes. A squinting glance at his phone tells him he’s slept well past three o’clock, almost to four. Great. Not that he had plans for the day, but he’s sort of annoyed that he’s slept through half of it. Plus he’s never going to get to sleep before dawn now, and tomorrow he has two prospective client meetings he absolutely cannot snooze through or his partner will actually murder him in the conference room.

Not that he’s entirely sure he gives any number of shits at all about that.

Or much of anything.

Is this his life from now on, Sebastian wonders, shoving himself to his feet and shambling into the kitchen for a drink of water. No light, no color, no laughter, an endless trudge of days that blend one into the other except for the occasions when he lets Connor barge his way in?

 _It doesn’t have to be_ , whispers a hopeful little voice - a hopeful little voice that he instantly turns his back on.

It doesn’t matter how much he misses Adam - _so much_ \- that’ll pass. It will. He’ll make it pass, damn it, he made the only sensible decision that could be made for both of them, so this whole thing where his chest aches around the place where his heart would be if it were whole and healthy and worth a damn, well, that will pass, it is going, goddamn it, to pass. He will, oh yes he will, make it pass.

Passing the kitchen table, he spots the two files he’d brought home on Friday, the information on Monday’s clients that’s supposed to help him craft Clio-winning ad campaigns for whatever crap they’re trying to sell. As a distraction, an aid on the path to getting over things, work is not the most fun option in the world, but without leaving his apartment, it’s the option he’s got. With a sigh, he scoops them up and heads into the bedroom to grab his reading glasses.

He doesn't quite notice the framed photo, the new addition to his nightstand, not at first.

It hits him when he reaches the living room, knocks his feet out from under him and sends him sprawling down on the couch, hand over his mouth, glasses and files dropped forgotten on the floor.

_Did I just see that?_

Had he, in fact, imagined a framed black and white photograph of himself with Adam in the kitchen at Sweets, a photograph that had to have been taken two weeks ago and utterly without their notice?

Was it real, that forever-trapped moment where he was holding Adam in his arms and watching him pipe white frosting clouds onto cupcakes? He remembers his breath syncing with Adam’s slow steady ones as Adam resumed his work, that silly paper hat all of the Sweets staff had to wear unable to contain all of the soft mellow gold spikes of Adam’s hair. He’d whispered in Adam’s ear, doesn’t remember what he said but remembers it made Adam smile.

He’d loved it when he could be the one to make Adam smile. He was so cheerful all the time, but it had felt like a special moment when he could make Adam happy the way Adam made him happy...

Still dazed and shocked, Sebastian stumbles to his feet and back to the door of his bedroom, blinking at his nightstand. There it is. Next to his alarm clock, solidly framed in black wood and white matting. In a few lurching steps, he’s got it in his hand and is sliding down next to his bed, eyes fixed on it and drinking in every detail.

 _Connor_. Of course it had to be Connor. Connor taking the picture and Connor leaving it here. Sebastian’s fingers trace the lines of Adam’s arms - _I loved being in them_ \- and his face - _his smile is better than sunlight_ \- and shoulders - _I never did develop those pictures I took of him sleeping_ \-  and wishing he could feel the real, living flesh and blood Adam under his fingertips.

It hurts, it hurts like fire where his heart should be but he can’t help smiling through the tears gathering in his eyes -

\- the knock on the door startles him out of it.

_Connor. I will choke him for this._

The edges of the frame bite into Sebastian’s fingers as he strides to the door and jerks it open. "Connor, I fucki -"

Except - it's not Connor.

"Can I come in?" Greg asks quietly, his fingers knotted together and white at the knuckles.

“Wh...buh…” And now his other hand starts to ache as it tightens around the doorknob, the skin over his knuckles thinning out and surely whitening while blood drains away. _I need to improve my diet_ , he thinks inanely, stifling a giggle. _Another day like this in the future might actually kill me. What does a heart attack feel like?_

Greg tilts his head, eyes searching. “Sebastian?”

Stepping back, Sebastian shakes his head, not sure if he’s trying to snap out of his shock or make the illusion - it has to be an illusion - of Greg disappear.

But Greg doesn’t disappear, just stands there looking nervous - amazing, Greg has nervous in him, Sebastian would never have guessed - and waiting and, shit, fine, Sebastian takes another step back, braces himself, and opens his mouth. “Fine. Come in.”

“Thanks.” He steps inside, but only two steps, hovering around the doorway like he wants to bolt and run. It’s so entirely confusing that Sebastian feels some of his tension melting away, his stomach unknotting while he tries to reconcile his ex-lover Greg, model/dancer Greg of the vile poisonous remarks and fucking around and cold hard arrogance with this Greg who is visibly nervous and tense and awkward for what has got to be the first time in his life.

 _Nope. Can’t_. “It’s not even four o’clock, I know,” he says, “but the sight of you makes me need a drink. Want one?”

Greg stares at him for a moment and then lets out the smallest of relieved chuckles. “Desperately.”

The liquor cabinet hasn’t been replenished, so Sebastian gets down a pair of wine glasses and locates a bottle of Pinot Grigio in the crisper drawer of his refrigerator. He’d had to put the photo down to work - it’s a nasty shock to turn around and see Greg sitting at the kitchen table with it in his hands. Anger floods him at the sight of it.

“This guy,” Greg says, pointing to the picture. “This is that guy you were with that day. At the diner. Are you two -”

“Put it down.” _Before I smash this bottle over your head._ “Put it - don’t touch - why the _fuck_ are you here?”

He might, just slightly, be regretting his decision to not slam the door in Greg’s face.

Greg inhales and lets it all out in a burst, setting down the picture frame. “That’s a fair question.”

“Then fucking answer it.” He’s shaking, the rush of anger so sudden and all consuming. With effort, Sebastian gets the wine glasses onto the table without making them clatter and clank against the wooden surface, but he hands Greg the corkscrew and bottle. “And open this.”

“Absolutely. Yes. Sure.” But oddly, Greg’s hands don’t seem to be any steadier than Sebastian’s, the corkscrew slipping and clicking against the bottleneck before he can finally get the point successfully jabbed into the cork. “Um. Let’s get some of this stuff down -”

“No,” Sebastian snaps, clenching his fingers into and out of fists. His desire to have this over with as soon as possible is mounting higher by the minute. “Talk and uncork at the same time. You’re not going to get to stay long, so if you want any of that wine, you’ll fucking multitask.”

“Okay.” Greg takes a couple more breaths, shoulders heaving, and it seems to do the trick. He gets the bottle open and starts pouring. “Um. So, I came to apologize.”

“You came to apologize.” Sebastian makes no effort to bottle up the hysterical laughter, the whole thing is so ludicrous and _why_ hadn't he just slammed the damn door in Greg’s face, _why_? “Ha! For what? For being an asshole? For all those dick backhanded 'compliments' you threw at me? For treating me like shit? For fuck -”

“For all of it. Everything.” Greg hands him a glass. “Hey. Don’t drop that.”

Sebastian has just about decided he cannot handle any more emotional whiplash, not today or maybe ever again. Moving to the North Pole is sounding very good right now. Isolated, nearly impossible to get a cell phone signal, great photography opportunities, he’s sure. But mostly the isolated thing. He takes the wine glass and falls into a chair. “Okay. Fine. Explain.”

“Well.” Greg’s fingers flex and flutter around the bulb of his untouched glass of wine. “I mean, it’s just. Look.” It’s unusual to see Greg having to pick at words, to struggle to get one coherent thought out. “This is hard.”

“No, being with you was hard.” He drains half his glass in one go. “Spitting out an apology you won’t mean ought to be easy, it’s just stringing words together and you’ve always been good at that.”

“You think I wouldn’t mean it?” And that’s rich, Greg actually is wide eyed with something that looks suspiciously like surprise - and hurt. “You think I’d come here, knowing how much you have to hate me, and make a _fake_ apology?”

Sebastian snorts. “Well, you were always pretty good at saying whatever you needed to say to justify the shit you pulled and make yourself feel better.”

That seems to give Greg pause. “All right,” he says. “I earned that.”

“I’m holding back on what you’ve _earned_.” It’s a sneer, he can’t help it. Down goes another quarter of his glass, and he’s only just now starting to stop shaking. “Okay. Fine. Let’s assume you really do mean this, or think you do. What would you say?”

“I would say I’m sorry, for starters,” Greg informs him, and it’s a definite effort for him to keep his voice as even as it is, Sebastian can tell. “I’d work backwards, starting with the really fucking shitty way I ended things with you. That was...it was uncalled for. I should have explained things to you, I should have been a decent fucking human being.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think you’d ever been within slapping distance of decency up to that time, don’t be too surprised that you couldn’t pull it off.” Sebastian leans back, then forward, twitching and restless and hating that he can’t seem to be calm and reasonable about this.

Although - why should he be? He shoves his glass aside. “Let’s not go into a laundry list. We’ll be here way too long and I’m not about to spend a week explaining to you exactly every shit thing you did, because I am _positive_ you don’t even have a full list.” It’s his turn now to breathe, to settle his nerves so that he can get through this. “I don’t really need an apology. You know what I need? I need to know _why_.”

“Why?” Greg blinks and shakes his head. “Why?”

“Yeah. Why. Why you did it. Why you were such a raging asshole.” He has to close his eyes to get through this. "I mean, you know, I thought I was in love with you."

A long exhalation and - “That’s why,” Greg finally says.

Sebastian’s eyes snap open. “What the _fuck_?”

“I’m not saying it’s a good excuse. It is beyond not.” At last, Greg takes a substantial swallow of his wine. “But that’s why. I mean, I didn’t know for sure you were, because you never talk about stuff like that. I was just, you know, after a while I started to realize there were feelings there and, okay, I freaked out.”

Sebastian laughs again, it feels like he'll never run out of hysteria. “You were a dick from day _one_.”

“Well, let’s be honest. We’re both kind of jerks at heart sometimes. We know our own kind.” Eyebrows up, Greg leans his chin on his hand. “It’s sort of what brought us together - right?”

Not that Sebastian has any interest in being fair, but - “Yeah, all right. That’s fair,” he admits.

“Okay. So.” There’s a pause for thought, Greg swirling his glass in his free hand, seemingly mesmerized by the moving liquid. “This is going to keep sounding shitty. You want me to keep going?”

“If I’m being honest, my opinion of you has no further beneath the floor to go,” Sebastian tells him.

“It’s not that.” Greg shakes his head. “Think what you want of me, it doesn’t matter, I’ve earned anything you have to think about me. I just...I hurt you without thinking for so long, I’m kind of not interested in consciously saying things that are going to hurt you now.”

Down goes the last of Sebastian’s wine at that,and he closes his eyes again, shutting them tight. “Then don’t think about it. Just...just get it out. Please. Just say it.”

At least this time he can brace himself, knows something’s coming.

“We had an agreement, Seb. Remember? From the beginning. We said we weren’t going to let it mean anything.”

“Friends with benefits.” He’s not sure he likes where this is going.

“Right.” It’s quiet except for the tiny, tinkling chime of Greg’s fingernail against his glass. “You...you were breaking the agreement.”

“You have to be fucking kidding me.” His mouth and eyes fly open at the same time and it is hard, oh so hard, to resist the urge to wring Greg’s neck. “Are you blaming _me_ for your being a complete fucking asshole?”

“Yes! No...no! Well.” As if he knows he’s in danger of being strangled, Greg scoots his chair back and holds his hands out, a gesture of surrender. “No. I’m just telling you what led me to do it. Okay? I mean, I should have ended it. I should have just ended it.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Sebastian feels like he’s swallowed a ball of aluminum foil, or knives, or glass. “Why?”

"The friends part.” Greg’s skin flushes a dull red. “ _Friends_ with benefits. I didn't want to lose my friend. I just wanted him to stop having feelings for me."

All Sebastian can do for way, way too long is just stare. “Okay. Greg? That’s fucked. You know that’s fucked, and stupid, and wow, no.”

“I’m a male model,” Greg says, letting a nervous laugh escape. “The common wisdom is that we’re not the brightest of the species.”

“You have a philosophy degree from Cornell, you’re not a complete idiot,” Sebastian says without thinking.

It’s the smallest gesture of unintentional amity, but it breaks the tension and sends them both into silence, just looking at each other across the table, no anger, no fear, only resignation.

Sebastian is just...tired. Tired of so, so much. Of hurting, of resisting, of hating himself.

“You…” The words stick in his throat with the ball of whatever’s grating the tender inside of it. “You made me feel like I was worthless. And the sick thing is, I thought I deserved it...I still kind of do think I earned it.”

“Why -” Greg’s eyes are huge and confused. Sebastian waves him into silence.

“Just...long story, my life before I met you...just. Yeah.” He swallows, and swallows some more, and pours another half glass of wine to try and wash the harshness down his throat. “I’m not a great person.”

“No one is.”

 _Adam is._ “Some people are.”

“Well.” Greg reaches for the bottle to top off his own glass. “That doesn’t matter. You _didn’t_ deserve me being that kind of a shit to you, I promise. You aren’t worthless. You weren’t what I wanted as a boyfriend, that’s not the crime of high treason I treated it as.” He starts to sip at the fresh pour, and stops. “But...listen. Sebastian...you resented me so much by the end. Why would you have even wanted to stay with me?"

“I was hoping you’d stop treating me like crap,” Sebastian tells him, and the honesty feels like hooks being ripped from his skin. “I just thought it might turn around - if it could turn around and you could be decent to me, maybe it would prove I was worth something. I needed that to happen, and it didn’t, it never did.”

Greg’s face is a study in pain. “I’m sorry. Sebastian, I -”

“No. Don’t. I…” He’s shaking again. Why is he shaking? “I’ve got more issues than just you, trust me. I probably need therapy.”

“Well, join the club.” Greg glances over and Sebastian guesses his face must be a hilarious mask of shock, because his ex laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah. I’m in therapy. You’re not actually surprised?”

“A little,” Sebastian admits.

“Meeting Kevin and falling for him...He’s Episcopalian.” Greg waits, and when Sebastian can’t indicate comprehension, he goes on. “We had to get counseling with the bishop before the church would do this blessing thing they do on gay marriages. And let me tell you, it kind of shed a light on me as a person and what I saw was pretty horrible.” He sips at his wine. “I’m a little surprised Kevin still agreed to marry me, to be honest. He _did_ make therapy one of the conditions of going through with it.”

Sebastian still can’t wrap his head around everything. He goes with the simplest of the confusing matters that surround him. "I still can’t believe you did go through with it. Kevin and Gregory Arata-Henderson," he says aloud and grimaces. "Could you be any more white picket fence? You have _two last names_."

“Oh, and you with a cupcake baking Englishman - I heard that accent at the diner, don’t even try to deny it. Like that isn’t basically the most adorable thing in the world.” Reaching across the table, Greg picks the photo back up and waves it. “Listen, if I’d met this one first, you and I would have had to fight for him.”

“Yeah, well, it’s over, so maybe if you and Kevin get into threesomes you can hook up with him,” Sebastian mumbles into his glass, and he can’t look at Greg or the picture or anywhere but at the woodgrain of his tabletop or the white plaster of his walls.

"Over?" Greg's incredulous chuckle is accompanied by the tap of his finger on the glass of the photo frame. "You’re kidding, right?”

Setting down his glass, Sebastian pushes it aside and resists the urge to refill it one last time. “No. It’s done. It was just a…”

“No, no it was not,” Greg interrupts, carefully putting the photograph down. “No two people who look at each other like this are ‘just a’ anything. If this - " he shoves the frame across the table. “If this is over, then you need to make it _un_ over.”

"Um." It's an effort, but he does manage to glare at Greg. "What is this, you think you're my friend again or something and you have the nerve to offer me advice?"

"I'm not going to presume friendship," Greg says with irritating calm. "But the advice thing, yeah. Go fix this."

 _No. I can’t._ “It’s not that easy.”

The frame scrapes against the tabletop as Greg pushes it closer. “Are we looking at the same picture?”

Under the table, Sebastian starts flexing and clenching his fists again, trying to keep calm when he desperately wants to explode. “Why are you being so insistent on this?”

“Because I can never do enough to make up to you for what I did, but maybe pushing you to take this 100% sure shot of a chance can be _some_ kind of consolation?” He reaches under the table and takes Sebastian’s hand, his eyes earnest and utterly without any kind of guile for the first time since Sebastian has known him. "I took a chance, Sebastian. I hurt you doing it - and I'll never forgive myself for that - but I took a chance, and it's been the best decision I made despite how I got to it. If you have that chance too, you have to take it.  This,” he taps on the glass again, “is not something anyone should turn their back on."

Greg has always had an excellent facility for persuasion, and Sebastian’s resistance to his longing for Adam, never strong in the first place, is wearing so, so thin. But fear is still there, holding the crumbling walls together. “He might not…”

“Here’s where I live now,” Greg says, getting up to grab a pencil and notepad from the counter. He scribbles down an address and pushes it over to Sebastian. “If this guy says no, if he actually turns you down, you are free to come over to my place any time you want and punch me in the nose.”

Sebastian bursts out laughing at the surprise of it. “You can’t actually mean that.”

“Oh, I mean it. I’m that sure I’m right. If I’m not, come punch me in the nose. I won’t try to stop you even if I have a photoshoot the next day.” Tapping the pencil against his chin, Greg looks thoughtful for a minute. “Or send Connor to do it, he’d like that, he always hated me.”

“It’s true.” This is indisputable fact. But Sebastian thinks he’ll keep this particular little offer to himself. “I just. I don’t know, I don’t…”

Greg just stares at him. “Don’t tell me you’re scared.”

 _Wouldn’t admit it to you of all people in a thousand years._ “Of course not.”

“Good. Because the Sebastian Smythe I know wouldn’t be.” Keeping his gaze steady, Greg leans back in his chair and picks his wine glass back up. “Because one time I went down to Philly in January and watched a completely sober Sebastian Smythe accept a dare to strip his clothes off and go sliding barefoot and bare-ass naked down the Schuylkill River after a freak ice storm.”

Sebastian gasps. “How do you remember that? I was sober because I was the designated driver, you were plastered!”

“That…” Greg chuckles. “That’s not a sight anyone forgets, Sebastian.” He sobers. “There were signs everywhere that said it was dangerous, the ice wasn’t thick enough. You could have died, but you took that dare from my drunk ass anyway.”

“So what are you saying?”

Cocking his head, Greg twists his mouth into a pucker and pretends to look like he’s thinking very hard. “That...this is less likely to kill you and...I dare you to do it.”

“Uh…” To go from not laughing at all in two weeks to not being able to stop laughing, however incredulously, it’s about enough to make him drunk all on its own. “Aren’t we a little old for making dares?”

“We were a little old for it a year and a half ago, and you still got buck-ass naked in below freezing weather.” Greg checks his watch, looking a bit surprised as he gets to his feet. “Wow. I’ve been here longer than I think you wanted me to be. Listen, if you don’t come to my place and hit me within the next two weeks, I will assume things are going well.”

Sebastian glances up and snorts. “You are so sure I’m going to give in to your little dare.”

“I’ve never known you to turn one down yet.” He leans down and kisses Sebastian on the temple, a kinder farewell than he’d given all those months ago. Sebastian doesn't know if he's imagining it leaving the impression of a dull burn on his skin. “I wish you every happiness, Sebastian. I truly do.”

He’s out the door before Sebastian can get up and see him off.

It can’t be more than a few minutes, but it feels like hours that Sebastian sits at his kitchen table, completely stupefied. “He thinks he knows me,” he scoffs at the walls, carefully ignoring the photograph sitting in front of him.

But he can’t help it. His eyes stray back down, almost as if pulled or drawn to look at the way Adam was smiling - was smiling at _him_ , was leaning into him.

They’d been the only two people in the world, in that moment.

He takes in a breath that’s icy cold when he blows it back out, and he remembers a dark night in Philadelphia, the scratch of thin ice under his bare feet, the painful chill of the air on his skin.

He groans.

“He really does know me too fucking well,” Sebastian informs his wine glass, and gets up from the table.


	30. Washing Ashore

The knock seems to echo through the apartment. _Boom. Boom. Boom._

No. Wait. Stop.

That’s not knocking.

It takes Adam’s brain a minute to catch up - there had been knocking, that was real, it had happened. But it had been short, the knock itself only a tense, hesitant rapping.

The echoing boom in his ears is his heartbeat, or at least what he imagines to be his heartbeat. The rush of blood through his veins is moving double-time quick _because_ of the knocking that had startled adrenaline into flooding his body; it’s racing through him and pounding in his ears and no wonder he thinks someone is banging his door down.

Another, even more hesitant knock comes - a real knock, no confusion this time - and this time Adam pries his eyes open to look at Fitz, perched before him with a look of puppy concern on his furry little face. “Still not for you, I take it.”

The only response he gets is a cold, wet nose pressed firmly into the back of his hand, as if Fitz is trying with all the might of his not-quite-two pounds to shove Adam towards the door. "All right, all right, I can take a hint."

He’s slow to uncurl his fingers from their white-knuckled grip on the photo frame, to arrange it on the nightstand next to his laptop and glasses. He casts it one last look that wrenches his heart out of place before picking up Fitz and trudging towards the door.

"I don't know who it could be now," he says to Fitz, scratching the fuzzmonster under his chin. “Connor coming back? Perhaps he forgot something.” He almost hopes it is Connor, having to haul his belongings up the stairs a third time. _Serve him right for that dirty trick with the photograph,_ Adam thinks, slung between gratitude and an aching heart for the gambit.

He hears it just as his hand closes around the doorknob. “I’m not Connor,” a familiar, ragged, tired voice informs him through the thin wood.

 _No,_ Adam thinks in shocked amazement, _no, you are not._

And then he can’t get the door open fast enough, scrambling to undo the locks and pull it wide. What he sees on the other side - all he can do is blink, stunned stupid and not sure that what he’s seeing is real.

“Sebastian,” he breathes, and his mind just...stops.

The man standing in the doorway, clinging to the door frame for dear life, is red-eyed, damp-haired under a green knit beanie, rumple-clothed and at least one day unshaven. A plain white t-shirt and blue jeans hang off of the already lean frame that, in only two weeks, seems to have lost weight it couldn’t spare in the first place. It’s about the scruffiest Adam has ever seen him in the seven months they’ve known each other.

He’s the best thing Adam’s ever laid eyes on.

“Hello, you,” he manages at last, knowing he must look quite the idiot with his face trying to smile, stay stoic, and look completely shocked all at once. He’s nearly afraid to breathe, Sebastian looks so much as if he’d turn and fly away if Adam so much as sneezes. “Been a bit.”

“Yeah, kind of.” Sebastian’s gaze bounces around like a rubber ball, never landing on anything for more than a second or two. “Is that a dog?”

“Oh, ah, yes.” Adam holds the puppy up. “Fitz.”

“Fitz.” Sebastian nods, still restless and strung so visibly tight. “He looks like a Fitz.”

“That’s exactly what I said.” He wants to smile, to laugh, to think that just the fact that Sebastian is here means that everything is put right again, but he knows that wish, no matter how fervent, can’t be trusted. Not yet. Adam pulls Fitz back in close to his chest and takes a step back from the door. “Ah, would you like -”

"Here," Sebastian blurts out, his other hand coming from behind his back to shove a plastic box at Adam. His gaze still bounces and wanders until he lowers his head, hand extended and shaking so that whatever is in the box rattles against the sides.

Adam starts back another step, fumbles for the box with his free hand. He ends up having to set Fitz down and scoot him gently off towards the back of the apartment to free up both his hands so that he can open it.

What he finds is something of a surprise.

Cookies.

He thinks. Maybe.

Bog standard chocolate chip cookies, clearly and obviously not from a bakery - they're not pretty. Misshapen, blackened lumps fill the container, not an edible looking one in the lot. Puzzled, Adam looks back up to see Sebastian watching him steadily at last, eyes wary, body tense and still poised for flight. "I don't..."

"They're a fucking metaphor. Apparently." Sebastian laughs, but it's a shaky laugh edged in nerves. "They weren't supposed to be. They were just supposed to be cookies. You're always making things for everyone else. I wanted to make something for you for once."

"Right..." He won't let himself get his hopes up. Well, not much. Well, not too much. But this means something, doesn’t it? It could, couldn’t it?

Adam’s heart is in his throat.

"But I can't even make cookies without you. And they were _tube_ cookies.” Sebastian laughs again, pulls his hands out of his pockets to rub his temples. “Who fucks up tube cookies? Slice and bake! It says it on the package!”

"Darling..." Adam begins, but his hesitant attempt is promptly run over by Sebastian continuing to rant.

"I forgot to set the timer, and I went to take a shower before I came here, but I had to clean out my bathroom because fucking Connor set up the darkroom and didn’t even use it and next thing I know I'm pulling burned cookies out of my oven and my entire apartment stinks and the smoke detector is going fucking crazy and all I can think is, _Adam would have remembered the timer_. But you weren't there and I couldn't wait any more so I didn't try again I just threw them in a box and came here and I'm so sor-"

Adam can see only one way to stop the breathless ramble, a calculated risk and possible disaster: tossing the box of cookies aside, he reaches out and grabs Sebastian by the front of his t-shirt.

He hopes that kisses will always and forever be a spectacular, wonderful, brain-meltingly effective way to shut Sebastian up.

A heady rush of sweet relief and _yes this_ washes through Adam at the moment their lips meet, from tingling toes up through his head. Under his curled up fist, through the t-shirt clenched tight in his fingers, he can feel the boom of a heartbeat like a knock on a door, not a flutter but a thump.

He kisses Sebastian like it could give him life, like a man deprived and then given all he could want, like he'd been drowning and this was the only source of breath that could save him. He holds on and holds on and holds on and lets it go to his head, taking every breath and hitching gasp and heartbeat into his mouth and memory.

_This is everything that has ever been right._

And Sebastian doesn't pull away. Shaking hands grip at Adam’s waist, pulling him tight-close and holding firm, they give his sparking, trembling hope a catalyst for ignition.

He has to be the one to break it off, eventually. He doesn't want to, but he has to breathe, and he has so many questions. Slowly, with care and never letting go his grip on Sebastian's shirt, Adam pulls away to look at him, really look into his eyes. "Why," he asks in a whisper, "are you here? Please?"

Sebastian's mouth works, opens and closes in silence until - "I," he begins, falters, and then he just folds down and forward in a boneless heap that Adam's arms reach for and catch without his even sparing a thought for it.

 _I can’t hold us both_ , he realizes almost immediately. _I can’t hold us both up -_

They sink down to the floor, a desperate clutched-together pile in the doorway, Sebastian shaking so hard in Adam’s embrace it feels like he could fly all to pieces in a moment if Adam doesn’t hold on for all he is worth.

Which of course Adam is so, so very willing to do, for as long as he’s needed and beyond.

But there is still so much he doesn’t understand, so many questions he knows he has to ask but has no idea what they might even be. Sebastian can’t stop shaking - _why?_ \- and Adam’s shoulder is growing damp with tears shed in determined silence - _what happened?_ \- and he’s so mired in and torn between being ecstatic - _you’re here_ \- and worried as hell - _you’re hurting_ \- he doesn’t even know where to begin.

“Shhh,” he whispers, feeling so helpless but at least it’s a start. “Shh. I’ve got you.”

He buries his face into the taut, warm and home-feeling familiar curve of Sebastian's neck, his own stinging tears peppering the skin alongside tiny constellations of freckles he knows and loves so well. Sebastian is squeezing him so tight he can’t breathe in more than shallow little catches of air, it hurts, it _hurts_ , but the ache is a drop in the bucket next to the thought of letting go and risking the chance of Sebastian panicking and running again.

So Adam holds tight, and Adam breathes in the tiniest quiet breaths, and Adam hopes so, so desperately with every ounce of wishing in his bottomless soul that Sebastian has chosen to come back to him.

The shaking tapers, slow, then slower, from shaking to trembling to shivering to tremors to stillness and silence. A thousand questions surround them on all sides and press in thicker than fog but Adam waits, still squeezed tight and holding on for dear life.

_Don’t go don’t go don’t go, not again, I’ll stop breathing if you go, don’t ever go again._

He can’t make the first move; it’s not his to make.

_Please, please…_

“I’m sorry.”

It’s muffled into Adam’s shoulder so that he feels it more than hears it, the sound of it vibrating through his skin.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian repeats, and lifts his head, hauling in a huge gulp of air and _no_ , he’s going to try to go, Adam can see it, and _no_. “I’m sorry, I’m so - I’m such a fuck up - I shouldn’t have -”

He starts to push Adam away, to squirm out of the tight grip, but _no_ , Adam isn’t doing this, not again. "I'm not letting go," he tells Sebastian as panic races through him, winding his fingers into the fabric of Sebastian’s t-shirt to hold him in place. "I am not ever, ever letting you go, not now that you’re here again. No.”

“You don’t understand, Adam, I made a mistake -” Sebastian works his arms free, only to stare with wild eyes when Adam seizes his wrists. “You don’t need me, you don’t deserve to have to put up - ”

“Stop it, please, Sebastian, just _stop_.” Adam disentangles himself just long enough to swing up onto his knees and climb into Sebastian’s lap, straddling him to pin him down. “Don’t leave me again, please don’t,” he whispers, sliding his fingers to the nape of Sebastian’s neck and pressing in just enough to be firm and tilt his head back, to hold him still but not to hurt. Leaning down, he takes kiss after kiss, begging between breaths. “Never again. Stay with me, please, please stay.”

“I’m a mess,” Sebastian gasps out, but his hands are gripping at Adam’s waist, holding on for dear life as he snatches his own kisses like enough of them will save him. “I’m not good, I’m fucked up, I’m -”

“Everything I want, shut up.” He hears the shaking in the desperate laugh that escapes his mouth and he presses his forehead to Sebastian’s. They’re both trembling now, thighs to shoulders to fingers to toes, they’ll take the building down if they can’t stop. “I’ll say it until you believe it but you can’t leave if you want to hear it.”

“Why?” Pulling back, Sebastian doesn’t let go of Adam but still manages to look as if he could pull free and flee at any second. “Why? What could you possibly want with me?”

_I have to say it now, don’t I? I have to tell him._

Now that he has all the room in the world to breathe, Adam still can’t. This is it. Maybe the last chance he’ll get. And is there any point in hiding it any longer? The worst thing already happened when he was too scared to say it.

He closes his eyes and lets out the last of the air in his lungs before he takes the leap. “I love you.”

Sebastian jerks under Adam’s hands, the only indication of whatever shock and surprise he might be feeling. “You what?”

"I love you," Adam says again, quite simply, quite honestly, with his full heart in every word. "I was too afraid to tell you before. I thought you would leave me if I did.”

When he opens his eyes again, Sebastian is looking at him with wide eyes gone dark, all bewilderment and fear. “But I did leave.”

“So I had nothing to lose and now you know.” They’re not out of the woods, but he’s told the truth and Sebastian isn’t moving an inch. The world didn’t end. "What about you?"

Sebastian’s breath shudders out in a puzzled laugh. "What _about_ me?"

The half-shrug Adam pulls is far, far more casual than he’s feeling at the moment. "Sebastian. I am...holding on to the faint hope that you didn't just come over here to bring me cookies."

There’s conflict flickering behind Sebastian’s eyes that’s painful to watch, yet almost, oddly, in some way it’s nearly _heartening_. He’s still holding up his walls with both hands, but Adam can almost see them coming down, maybe...or is it wishful thinking?

“Did you mean it?” Sebastian finally asks, the words coming out like he’s pushing them with all his might. “What you...that you want…?”

“Not want. _Love_. That I _love_ you,” Adam corrects, letting his fingers run down over Sebastian's temple, trace the line of his jaw, allowing his thumb to stroke Sebastian's cheek. His throat fills up as he just keeps taking in the sight of Sebastian's beloved, confused, apprehensive, overwhelmed face, the face he wants to wake up to every morning as long as they’ve got life in them. “I’ve loved you quite a lot for quite a little while now. Don’t reduce it.”

Sebastian just stares at him, so still and quiet for so, so long and then -

\- blur, rush, grab, he’s got Adam in that breath-stealing grip again and his face buried in Adam’s chest and all Adam can hear is, “I love you, I love you, fuck, I love you, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

There is really not any other way that moment could have gone that Adam would have accepted as absolutely, perfectly authentic. He holds on to it and to Sebastian with everything he’s got in him; he wants to laugh and to cry and most of all to never, ever let go ever again.

Fitz scrabbles back over across the hardwood floor at the commotion, yapping and trying to climb up between them. Sebastian hiccups out a laugh as he pulls away from Adam to pick the puppy up, hugging him close and scratching the furry little head. His eyes are damp but shining when his gaze meets Adam’s again, and Adam feels whatever had kept his heart tethered to the ground letting go, loosening the strings and letting him fly at last.

He can see the same all over Sebastian’s face, and it just makes him fly higher.

 _No,_ this _is everything that’s right._

“Now you really can’t go, you know,” he says, not even trying to stop himself from smiling like a great big goony idiot. “And you can’t take that back. Not a single fuck of it.”

Sebastian keeps hiccuping and laughing, face flushing a dull red before he buries it in Fitz’s fur for a moment. “Oh, god, that was -”

“Pretty fucking perfect,” Adam says, grinning and grinning and grinning. “When you tell the story, and you will, you are absolutely not allowed to change a single word. I want you to swear you won’t.”

When Sebastian looks back up, his face is wearing a faint ghost of the playful smirk that Adam feels he hasn’t seen in far too long. “I want you to know you're making me lose a bet I would have really enjoyed winning.”

“You don’t say.” He shifts and settles into Sebastian’s lap. “Do tell.”

“Yeah. Well. A dare.” A breath puffs out Sebastian’s cheeks and he rolls his eyes to the ceiling.  “So, Greg came by my apartment.”

And that’s nearly enough to dislodge Adam from his seat in surprise. “He what?”

Sebastian waves his hand and rolls his eyes again. “Long story - I’ll explain the rest of it later, but seriously I have had a long day -”

“Sounds like we have stories to trade, then.”

“You thought I was Connor, I bet we do.” When Sebastian tucks his face into Fitz’s fur again, he looks to be pausing to gather his thoughts. It’s a long moment before he speaks again. “Anyway, he came by, and we had this _excruciating_ talk that ended up with him saying that if I came over here and you turned me down, I could go punch him in the nose.”

“Oh.” Adam takes a moment to imagine what such an opportunity might be like. General pacifist attitude aside, he is unopposed to the idea. “I have to admit, there is a part of me that is slightly disappointed you’re not going to get to do that.”

Sebastian laughs, full-on outright laughs this time, and oh, it’s sweet to hear. “Yeah. But I get you, and I guess I can live with that.” He buries his nose in the puppy fur at Fitz’s neck and scratches the fluff with a long finger before looking up at Adam again, more solemn but not guarded, and that’s just as sweet as the laughter. “I mean. I do get you. Right? Since I don’t get to punch Greg, are we really doing this?”

 _Oh, boy, are we ever_. “We are doing this.” Adam nods. “That is, if you’ll have me.” He pokes at the top at Sebastian’s head, the close proximity finally letting him recognize the beanie covering it. “And despite the fact that you stole the cap my gran knitted me for my 25th birthday.”

“This coming from the man who is sitting on me and making my legs fall asleep. I think I have more to put up with.” Sebastian raises an eyebrow. “I found this hat at my apartment, where you clearly left it. But I’d be happy to give it back to you.”

Adam leans forward to press a kiss through the knitted wool, deciding he’s not ready to get up from Sebastian’s lap just yet. “Nah. It looks too good on you.”

“Trade it to you for the puppy.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’m wearing your boxers, too.” Sebastian offers, assuming an expression of the most patently false innocence in the world. “Maybe you want those back? Boxers and the hat for the puppy?”

Tilting his head, Adam pretends to seriously consider the offer.  “No, I expect I can manage to get those back from you later. So it’s still a no on Fitz. He’ll be staying here.”

“Hmm.” The mock innocence vanishes, leaving Sebastian biting his lip in uncertainty. “Can...maybe I can stay here too? With you?”

Bringing his hands up, Adam cups Sebastian’s face and holds it still as he leans in, carefully avoiding squishing Fitz as he kisses Sebastian, long and slow and sweet.

It’s everything.

But it’s still missing something. He knows exactly what.

"Would you like to come in," Adam asks, sitting back and smiling so wide his cheeks ache, "and have some tea?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While there will be more to come in this 'verse - next week, even! - this story is now complete. I want to thank everyone who has read it with all my heart, thank you so much for being so kind to me and to these boys.
> 
> A short sequel will follow starting in January, and it's going to be a fun, fun time. For more information on the future of this 'verse, please [read this](http://glitterdammerung.tumblr.com/post/69548249784/heres-how-stages-is-gonna-wrap-up-you-need-to-read).
> 
> If you care to, you can follow me [on Tumblr](http://glitterdammerung.tumblr.com).
> 
> Thank you all so much, again and forever.


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